310 



antitropal, lying half-buried in a cavity of the albumen remote 

 from the hUum : radicle centrifugal. — Annual or perennial 

 herbsj very rarely undershrubs : root fibrous : stems knotty, 

 simple or branched, erect or procumbent : leaves scattered, 

 simple, entire, flat or channelled, sheathing at the base: 

 flowers white, blue, violet or purple, very seldom yellow, 

 fascicled, umbellate,, racemose or panicled, bracteate, some- 

 times enclosed with spathiform leaves, hooded or plaited. 



GENUS I. COMMELTNA. 



Triandria Monody nia. Sex: Si/st: 



Deriv. In honour of J. and Gr. Commelin, famous Dutch Botanists. 



GrBN. Chae. • Flowers irregular : sepals 6, distinct, three outer 

 ones unequal, somewhat coloured, persistent ; outermost one not 

 similar, navicular, lateral ones larger, concave, three inner ones 

 petaloid, withering, lateral ones longish clawed, round, reniform, 

 dissimilar one smaller, sessile, ovate or lanceolate, embracing the 

 lateral ones in the flower bud: stamens 6, inserted at the base of 

 the sepals, free, three thinner opposite the inner lateral sepals and 

 outer dissimilar one, furnished with thick cruciately 4-cleft anthers, 

 the rest fertile : filaments beardless : anthers 2-cened : cells 

 separated by a narrow connectivum, lateral ones straight, inter- 

 mediate one larger, arched, sometimes partly metamorphosed : ovary 

 sessile, 3-celled,'"lateral cells 2-ovuled, ovules superposed : dorsal 

 one smaller, 1-ovuled : style elongated : stigma simple, obtuse, 

 papillose, somewhat 3-lobed : capsule obliquely 3-celled, somewhat 

 3-valved, lateral cells 2, dorsal one 1-seeded : valves septiferous in 

 the middle : seeds angled, hilum linear. — Branched, rarely simple, 

 herbs, erect or more usually procumbent and creeping: leaves 

 undivided : sheaths entire : peduncles proceeding from the sheaths 

 and often cleaving them in front, 2 -cleft above, furnished at the 

 separation of the branches with a folded or hooded leafy spathe, one 

 branch more robust, 2-many-flowered at the apex, enclosed : flowers 

 pediceUed, recurved before and after flowering; the other branch 

 thinner, sometimes sterile, stipitiform, sometimes fertile, exserted, 

 1 -few-flowered at the apex : flowers blue, very rarely yellow, often 

 polygamous. 



(1) C. COMMUNIS. (Linn.) 

 Ident. Linn. sp. 60. — Dalz. Bomb. Flor. p. 252. 

 ^yn. C. polygama. Willd. Mmm. 67. — C. vulgaris, Schmiedel. 

 Miffrav. Schmied. Ic. 158, t. 40, 41.— Eed. Lil. t. 206. 



