58 THE FRANKENIA FAMILY. 
leaves, forming little terminal leafy heads or short spikes. Caylx ae , 
rowed, about the length of the leaves. Petals small, pink. | 
In maritime sands and salt-marshes, common round the Mediterranean 
and in Asia, extends up the western coasts of Spain and France, and 
varieties are abundant in similar localities in the southern hemisphere. 
In Britain it is only on the south-eastern coasts of England, from Yar- 
mouth to Kent. Fl. summer. The hairy variety, /. pulverulenta, often 
distinguished as a species, common in the south, does not appear to 
extend to Britain. 
XII. CAROPHYLLACEA. THE PINK FAMILY. 
Annual or perennial herbs, with opposite entire leaves and 
no stipules, or, in a very few genera, small scarious stipules ; 
the branches usually knotted at each pair of leaves; the flowers 
not yellow, usually in dichotomous cymes or panicles. Sepals 
4 or 5, free, or united into a tubular calyx. Petals as many, 
twisted in the bud, sometimes minute or wanting. Stamens 
free, twice as many as the petals, or fewer, inserted under the 
ovary. Styles 2 to 5, linear, stigmatic along their whole length. 
Capsule l-celled, or divided into cells at the base only, opening 
at the top into as many, or twice as many teeth or valves as 
there are styles. Seeds several, attached to a shorter or longer 
central column ; embryo curved round a mealy albumen or very 
rarely nearly straight. 
A considerable family, widely spread over the globe, most numerous 
in temperate regions, especially in the northern hemisphere, extending 
into the Arctic Circle, and to the summits of the Alps, but rare within 
the tropics. Thespecies are readily distinguished by their foliage and 
habit from all British polypetalous plants, except Frankenia, Elatine, and 
Linum catharticum, which have their ovary and capsule completely 
divided into cells, and Paronychiacee, which have but one seed in the 
ovary and capsule. 
The genera into which the species are distributed are often very arti- 
ficial, depending on the number of sepals, petals, stamens, or styles. 
These numbers are not indeed strictly constant, even in different flowers 
of the same individual; but in general by far the greater number of 
flowers in each individual will be found to agree in this respect with the 
characters assigned to the genus to which it belongs. Care must there- 
fore be taken, especially in the smaller-flowered Alsinew, to count the 
number of parts in several flowers wherever any hesitation is felt as to 
the genus it should be referred to. 
Sub-order 1. SILENEX. 
Sepals united in a tubular or campanulate calyx. 
Two or four scales or bracts closely outpace the base or 
the whole of the calyx : ; : : . 1. DIANTHUS. 
No scales at the base of the calyx. 
Styles2 . ’ : : ‘ ; ; : , : . 2 SAPONARIA. 
Styles3. : : : - ate ; ; . 3. SILENE. 
Styles 5 (rarely 4) ; 7 : : : : : , . 4. LYCHNIS. 
. 
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7 
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