eche] 



Qtfyz Crcagtirg of -BfltaiTji. 



438 



ly related to Phalangium, from which it 

 differs in the club-shaped filaments of the 

 stamens being furnished above with short 

 obtuse recurved teeth. The six known 

 species, which extend from Mexico south- 

 wards to Brazil, are perennial herbs, with 

 roots consisting of fascicles of fleshy fibres, 

 grassy root leaves six inches to a foot or 

 more in length, and rising from the midst 

 of these a branching flower-stem, six 

 inches to four feet high, with narrow, 

 bracts at the forking points, and white 

 or orange-yellow asphodel-like drooping 

 flowers, disposed in racemes, the indi- 

 vidual flowers seldom more than half an 

 inch across. E.terniflora, a yellow-flowered 

 Mexican species, has been cultivated in 

 English gardens. [A. A. B.] 



ECHEVERIA. A handsome genus of 

 succulent often fruticose plants belonging 

 to the Crassulacece, and chiefly natives of 

 Mexico. The leaves, which are generally 

 glaucous, and sometimes excessively so, 

 are not uncommonly spathulate in form, 

 sometimes disposed alternately along the 

 stem, sometimes collected into rosulate 

 tufts. The flowers are in racemes or cymes, 

 often secund, and generally of a bright 

 scarlet or yellow colour, and very orna- 

 mental ; they have a five-parted calyx, a 

 perigynous five-parted corolla, whose erect 

 segments close up into a pitcher-like form, 

 ten included stamens, with short hypogy- 

 nous scales, and five free one-celled ova- 

 ries, which become man} -seeded follicular 

 capsules. Many of the species are in cul- 

 tivation, and they are esteemed as including 

 some of the most interesting and beautiful 

 of greenhouse succulents. E. secunda and 

 glauca are particularly ornamental dwarf 

 herbaceous species, well adapted for indoor 

 window gardens. [T. M.] 



ECHIALES. One of Lindley's alliances, 

 which includes the Boraginacea, LabiaUe, 

 &c, 



ECHINACANTHTTS. A small genus of 

 Acanthacece, containing four species, na- 

 tivesof India. They are herbs with denticu- 

 late leaves, and small flowers which grow in 

 secund axillary cymes running into a ter- 

 minal panicle, and furnished with narrow 

 bracts and no bracteoles. The calyx is 

 deeply flve-cleft, the corolla funnel-shaped, 

 the stamens four, included, didynamous, 

 united in pairs at the base of the filaments, 

 and the stigma simple. The round two- 

 celled capsule bears many seeds. [W. C] 



ECHIXA.IS. A small genus of Composite?, 

 found in Armenia, Siberia, and N. W. 

 India. The leaves and flower-heads are 

 very like those of our own Corduus arven- 

 sis. The chief characters which separate 

 these plants from Carduus are the thin and 

 lacerated apices of the involucral scales, 

 which end in short spiny points, and the 

 short lacerated tails seen at the base of the 

 anther lobes. [A. A. B.] 



ECHINARIA. A genus of grasses be- 

 longing to the tribe Pappophorece. The 

 inflorescence is in simple globose spikes ; 



spikelets two to four-flowered, the superior 

 flower stalked ; glumes two, membranace- 

 ous and keeled, the lowest with two awns 

 at the tip, shorter than the superior one, 

 which has only one awn at the apex; pales 

 or inner glumes two, the lowest flve-nerved 

 and cleft at the tip. Of this small genus 

 only two species are described, namely, 

 E. capitula, which is a native of Africa as 

 well as Syria, and E. pumila, a native of 

 Spain. [D. M.] . 



ECHINATE. Furnished with numerous 

 rigid hairs, or straight pi'ickles ; as the 

 fruit of Castanea vesca. 



ECHINOCACTUS. The plants composing 

 this genus of Indian figs, like many others 

 belonging to the same natural order, 

 assume most grotesque forms. The name 

 is derived from two Greek w r ords, echinos, 

 a hedgehog, and kaktos, a prickly plant, in 

 allusion to many of the species being 

 globular and thickly beset with spines, 

 resembling a rolled-up hedgehog. There 

 are hosts of species enumerated in botani- 

 cal works, more than half of them natives 

 of Mexico, and the rest distributed 

 throughout South America, extending as 

 far south as Buenos Ayres and Mendoza. 



Like the generality of the order, they 

 delight in hot, dry, sandy, or stony places, 

 exposed to the full power of the sun. 

 They consist merely of a fleshy stem, 

 without leaves, and are either of a globular 

 form slightly flattened at the top, or ob- 

 long, or cylindrical, and only attain a large 

 size when they are very old. Whatever 

 their shape or size, the stems are always 

 either more or less fluted and ribbed, or 

 covered with tubercular swellings, the 

 number of the ribs varying in the different 

 species, being numerous and sharply de- 

 fined in some, while in others they are 

 fewer and merge into each other. Nearly 

 all the species are armed with stiff sharp 

 spines, arranged in clusters, and seated 

 upon little woolly cushions placed at inter- 

 vals along the edges of the ridges, or on 

 the tips of the tubercles. The flowers are ! 

 generally large and showy, and are pro- 

 duced at or near the top of the plant, 

 growing from the upper side of the 

 younger fascicles of spines; but in some 

 species the top of the plant is densely 

 covered with light brown wool, from out 

 of which the flowers proceed. The calyx 

 has a broad generally short tube, the lower j 

 or outermost sepals being of a scale-like | 

 character, and the upper ones more like i 

 petals, into which, in fact, they gradually j 

 pass, the inner petals spreading out and | 

 radiating. The numerous stamens are j 

 fixed to the inside of the calyx-tube, and j 

 are shorter than the petals. The style is 

 columnar, and separates into from five to i 

 ten radiating stigmas, which project very 

 slightly beyond the stamens. The fruit is j 

 generally scaly or prickly, and is crowned i 

 with the withered remains of the flowers. 



E. Yisnaga, which is perhaps the largest | 

 of the genus, is a native of San Luis de j 

 Potosi, in Mexico. Large plants of this j 

 have from forty to fifty sharp ridges, with i 



