Here, as in most of the genera arranged by botanists in the 
Class Dodecandria, we find the number of stamens liable to 
great variation ; and with Sir James E. Smith, I prefer re- 
ferring this genus to the Class Polyandria. In the characters 
of Talinum, too, at least as given by Peksoon in his Synop- 
sis, and by Smith in Rees' Cyclopcedia, the seeds are said to 
be fixed to a globular central receptacle, in contradistinction to 
those filiform ones which separately support the seeds in Por- 
tulacca. The present species, and the T. patens figured in 
Lamarck's Illustrations, have their seeds each evidently at- 
tached to a filiform stalk, by means of which they are fixed to 
the base of the capsule. 
The species here represented, although scarcely worthy of 
cultivation for its beauty (its flowers, which expand in the morn- 
ing when the rays of the sun strike upon them, being peculiarly 
evanescent), yet deserves notice on account of its rarity ; no au- 
thor, as far as I can discover, having noticed it, except it be 
perhaps Ruiz and Pavon in their Flora Peruviana et Clti- 
lensis : and the definition there given is so short, " I'alinum 
ciliatum foliis lineari-oblongis _ciliatis, floribus axillaribus soli- 
tariis," that I cannot feel by any means assured that I have 
done correctly in adopting their specific name. In the main 
character of the ciliated foliage it unquestionably agrees ; and 
with regard to the " flores solitarii," if the large foliaceous pro- 
cesses be considered as leaves, rather than as bracteas (and their 
insertion is not where the pedicel immediately joins on to the 
stalk), then these authors are right in that particular also. At 
the same time, I may observe, that the footstalk is united with 
the stalk for the lower half of its length, and at the base of this 
point of union the leaf or bractea is inserted. 
Fig. 1. Petal. Fig. 2. Flower, with the petals removed. Fig. 3. Single 
stamen. Fig. 4. Pollen. Fig. 5. Pistil. Fig. 6. Capsule, with one of 
its calyx-valves spread open. Fig. 7. Capsule bursting open. Fig. 8. 
Cluster of seeds on their stalks. Fig. 9. Single seed, with its stalk. 
Fig. 10. Seed cut open, to shew the Embryo and Albumen. — All more 
or less magnified. 
