84 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
ORDER XLVIII.-C ONVOLVULACEiE. 
Herbs often twining, more rarely under-shrubs or shrubs, with 
alternate leaves, or parasitical on other plants and leafless. Stipules 
none. Flowers perfect, regular, generally axillary, often showy. 
Calyx free from the ovary, persistent, of 5 equal or often very 
unequal sepals, rarely monosepalous and 5-toothed. Corolla hypo- 
gynous, monopetalous, funelshaped-bellshaped or subrotate-funnel- 
jhaped, more rarely bell-shaped or funnel-shaped, nearly entire 
with 4 or 5 lobes, plaited and twisted in bud. Stamens 4 or 5, 
inserted in the base of the corolla-tube ; anthers 2-celled. Ovary 2- 
to 4-celled, rarely 1-celled, sometimes divided into 2 or 4 lobes, or 
apocarpous with 2 separate carpels ; style simple, entire or 2-cleft, 
more rarely 2. Ovules few, often solitary, in each cell. Fruit a cap- 
sule splitting into valves, which break away from the dissepiments, 
or bursting transversely, or sometimes baccate and indehisccnt. 
Seeds few, with a coriaceous or membranous testa ; embryo large, 
curved, with corrugated folded foliaceous cotyledons, in scanty 
mucilaginous albumen. 
Tribe I.— CONVOLVULEiE. 
Leafy and non-parasitical plants. Carpels united into a syn- 
carpous ovary. Embryo with cotyledons. 
GENUS 7.-C ONVOLVULUS. Linn. 
Calyx 5-partite or of 5 sepals, often irregular, and sometimes 
with 2 large bractcolcs at the base. Corolla deciduous, funnelshaped- 
bellshaped or rotate-funnclshaped, with 5 plaits, and 5 angles or 
broad short teeth, without scales in the tube. Stamens inserted in 
the tube of the corolla, generally included. Style single, filiform ; 
stigmas 2. Capsule sub-globose, 1- or 2-cclled, indehiscent, or split- 
ting into 2 valves united above, each cell containing 1 or 2 large 
seeds. 
Serbs or under-shrubs, often twining, with axillary showy 
blue, purple, pink, white, or pale-yellow flowers, in shape often 
resembling the bell of a trumpet. 
The derivation of the name of tliis genua of plants seems to be from volvo, I 
vriml about, in allusion to the habits of the species. 
