Claytonia.) XIII, PORTULACEA, alee 
of two opposite leaves. Flowers very 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, now so common a weed in some parts 
of Lancashire, Oxfordshire, Surrey, and some other English counties, that 
it can be no longer omitted from our Floras. Fl. spring and summer. 
[C. alsinoides, Sims, with ovate acuminate root-leaves and sessile 
orbicular stem-leaves, also a North American species, is naturalized 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, aud contain- 
ing 3 seeds. 
The genus consists but of one species. 
1, M. fontana, Linn. (fig. 174). Water Montia, 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 5 or 6 lines long. Flowers solitary or in little 
drooping racemes of 2 or 8, 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- 
lace 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 the sides, forming incomplete dissepiments, almost as 
in Frankeniacee. A single species only has any claims for 
admission into a British Flora, and that only as an intro- 
duced plant, and no others are likely to be met with in our 
gardens. 
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. Petals as many. Stamens as many, or twice as 
many, 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 atuft of cottony hairs. No albumen. 
1, E. gallica, Linn, (fig.175). Common Tamarisc,—An elegant shrub 
