14 



1-celled, 1— many-ovuled : ovules attached to the bottom of 

 the cell or appended by free erect cords, amphitropal : style 

 terminal, simple, rather long, or short, sometimes scarcely 

 any: stigma capitate or emarginately 2-lobed, or stigmas 2 — 3, 

 subcylindric or filiform : fruit 1 or many-seeded, enclosed by 

 the calyx, seldom naked : pericarp membranaceous, utricular 

 or subcapsular, without valves or cut round and dehiscing, 

 sometimes a caryopsis, very rarely a berry: seed slightly 

 compressed, lenticular-reniform : albumen copious, central, 

 mealy: embryo arched or circular, peripherical. — Herbs or 

 undershrubs or small trees, glabrous, pubescent or woolly : 

 stems erect or ascending, continuous or jointed : leaves oppo- 

 site or alternate, simple, sessile or short-petioled, usually 

 quite entire : stipules none : flowers minute, regular, her- 

 maphrodite, monoecious or dioecious by abortion, sessile, 

 glomerate or solitary, capitate or spiked, lateral ones some- 

 times abortive and changed into a crest, awn or glochis : 

 bracts 3, usually contiguous : lower one larger, usually per- 

 sistent, very rarely deficient, and then the axillary flowers 

 are protected by a floral leaf: lateral ones usually keeled, 

 concave, never leafy, more or less scariose, deciduous with 

 the flower. 



GENTJS I. DEEEINGIA. 

 Pentandrla ITonegynia. Sex: Systi 



Deriv. In memory of Dr. Charles Deering, an English botanical 

 author. 



Gbn. Chae. Plowers hermaphrodite, tribracteate : calyx 5- 

 sepaled, sepals equal, spreading, reflex or erect : stamens 

 combined below into a cup : anthers 2-celled : ovary 1-celled 

 many-ovuled : style almost none : stigmas 3 — 4, semieyUndric, 

 revolute : fruit a berry, inflated, subglobose, many- seeded : seeds' 

 vertical, lenticular-remform. — Shrubs with alternate, quite entire 

 leaves : flowers very shortly pedicelled, arranged in spikes, ter- 

 minal, axillary, and from the highest wings, branched or simple, 

 slender and leafless : bracts concave, coloured, persistent, lower 

 one at the base, lateral ones at the apex of the pedicel. 



