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THE PINK FAMILY. 
XII. CARYOPHYLLACEA. 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 1-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. The species are readily distinguished by their foliage and habit 
from all British polypetalous pants, 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 artificial, 
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 therefore be taken, 
especially in the smaller-flowered Alsinee, to count the number of parts in 
several flowers wherever any hesitation is felt as to the genus it should be 
referred to. 
Suborder 1, SrnENEzR. 
Sepals united in a tubular or campanulate calyx. 
Two or four scales or bracts closely pal ele. the base or 
the whole of the calyx : : .  @ sh Dryas 
No scales at the bares of the e calyx, . 
Styles2 . : . ; ‘ ; : . 2. SAPONARIA, 
Styles3. : ’ 4 ‘ : : : . 3. SILENE. 
Boies 5 (rarely 4). ; ; ‘ F ; s ; . 4 LycHNIs. 
Suborder 2. ALSINER. 
Sepals free, or only very slightly connected at the base. 
Small, white, scaly stipules at the base of the leaves. 
Styles 3. Leaves linear, Pilg te oppose. not clus- 
tered « 12. SPERGULARIA. 
Styles 3. Leaves flat, the upper ones. apparently 4 in a 
whorl . 14, POLYCARPON. 
Styles 5. Leaves linear, cylindrical, “clustered sO as to 
appear many in a whorl. ‘ SPERGULA. 
Leaves without any scales or stipules at ‘the base. 
Petals entire, or slightly jagged, or none. 
