492 THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 
from their fruits or flowers. Lrcyrnrpace Endlicher treats as a 
sub-order. It includes the Leptospermee, the Cajeput oil-tree, and 
other interesting genera. 
CacTALs. 
In this group are ranged the well-known Cactuses, and other 
favourites of the greenhouse among the Loasacee. In appearance 
the group seems anomalous, but their dichlamydeous flowers and 
parietal placente bring them together in the opinion of botanists. 
Trees and shrubs, with alternate simple leaves, deciduous leaflets 
at their base; flowers hermaphrodite, regular, arranged in spikes, : 
les; calyx tubular, adhering to the ovary, with ten CCLXXXIV. Homaliaces. 
racemes, or panicles 
to fifteen lobes ; corolla five to ten petals ; stamens equal to the lobes; 
ovary inferior. 
pp D ; flowers hermaphrodite, regular; caly& tubular ; 
corolla with four or five concave petals; stamens indefinite; ovary 
inferior, one-celled, with several partitions. 
Herbaceous plants, more or less covered with prickles; leaves } 
CCLXXXYV. Loasacezx. 
J 
e 
Trees and shrubs, with succulent spine, angular, depressed, o1 
ian oe —_ i, deciduous stipules, but often wanting, and 
replaced by a cushion; flowers hermaphrodite ; calyx many-lobed ; | CLXXXVI. taceer. 
corolla with numerous petals ; stamens indefinite in number; ovary C One 
inferior, one-celled; fruit fleshy, one-celled, many-seeded, smooth, or 
cov scales, ) 
f 
| 
The Homaliacee are natives of tropical America, and between 
the tropics in Africa, the Isle of Bourbon, and Madagascar. 
The Loasaceé are American plants found over the whole conti 
nent ; their most noted peculiarity being the secretion of an acrid — 
juice with which the hairs on the stem are charged. 
The Cacrackx came originally from the American continent. 
They are at the same time fleshy and ligneous. Their branching 
stems present the most varied, often the most grotesque forms. ~ 
Sometimes they are erect, like a tall fluted column; at others 
they are massed together like a solid sphere, tapering off into 
cylindrical branches, or flattened after the manner of the Indian 
Fig. In short, nothing is more varied than the aspect of ess 
numberless Cactuses, which grow naturally in strange profusion 
in America, and which art has brought together in great quantities 
in our gardens for the purposes of study or gratification. The 
stem of the Cactus is generally destitute of leaves, the existence Co, 
which is, so to speak, only suggested by a small cushion ee 
under the bud. Nevertheless the genus Pereskia has true pee 
late leaves, which are large and oblong, caducous, or deciduous. 
The buds, situated at the axiles of the leaves, are a’ 
