Claytonia. } AE PORTULACEZ. 77 
small, in one, two, or more clusters or short racemes along one common 
peduncle above the leaf. Petals white, notched, scarcely longer than 
the calyx. 
A native of north-western America, how so common a weed in many 
English counties that it cannot be omitted from our Flora. Fl. spring 
and summer. 
[C. Sibirica, Linn. (alsinoides, Sims), with ovate acuminate root-leaves 
and sessile orbicular stem-leaves, also a North American species, is 
naturalised in various places, and threatens to be as common as C. 
perfoliata.] | 
— 
Il. MONTIA. MONTIA. 
Flowers minute, with the 5 petals united into one corolla, split open 
in front. Stamens 3. Stigmas 3. Capsule opening in 3 valves, and 
containing 3 seeds. 
The genus consists but of one species. 
1. M. fontana, Linn. (fig. 175). Blinks, or Water Chickweed.—A 
little, glabrous, green, somewhat succulent annual, forming dense tufts, 
from 1 to 4 or 5 inches in height, the stems becoming longer and weaker 
in more watery situations. Leaves opposite or nearly so, obovate or 
spathulate, from 3 to 6 lines long. Flowers solitary or in little drooping 
racemes of 2 or 3, in the axils of the upper leaves ; the petals of a pure 
white, but very little longer than the calyx. Capsules small and globular. 
On the edges of rills, and springy, wet places, where the water is not 
stagnant, throughout Europe, in north Russian Asia, in North America, 
and down the Andes to the southern extremity, in Australia and New 
Zealand, but not in central Asia. Extends over the whole of Britain. 
Fl. spring and summer. 
XIV. TAMARISCINEA.. THE TAMARISC FAMILY. 
A very small European, North African, and central Asiatic 
family, with one Mexican genus, all differing from Caryophyl- 
lacee in their frequently shrubby habit, alternate leaves, and the 
ovules and seeds inserted on 3 distinct placentas, arising 
from the base of the cavity of the ovary, and adhering some- 
times to its sides, forming incomplete dissepiments, almost as 
in Prankeniacee. A single species claims admission into a 
British Flora, but only as a naturalised plant. 
I. TAMARIX. TAMARISC. 
Maritime shrubs, with slender, twiggy branches, covered with small, 
green, alternate, scale-like leaves ; the flowers small, in terminal spikes 
or racemes, Sepals 4 or 5. Petalsas many. Stamens as many, or twice 
asmany, hypogynous. Ovary free, with 3, rarely 2 or 4 styles. Capsule 
1-celled, opening in as many valves as styles. Seeds several, erect, 
crowned each with a tuft of cottony hairs. No albumen. 
1. T. gallica, Linn. (fig. 176). Common 7,—An elegant shrub of 3 
