Plantago.] 
XCVII. PLANTAGINE^. 
1211 
long, obtuse with broad scarious margins, the centre opaque, from copiously 
hirsute to quite glabrous. Corolla-tube about as long as the calyx, lobes ovate, 
usually broad, acute or almost obtuse, much imbricate in the bud, one entirely 
outside and the opposite one entirely inside. Ovules 2-celled with 2 collateral 
ovules in each cell. Capsule shortly conical at the top or obtuse, circumciss, 
ripening all 4 seeds or sometimes only 1 or 2 of them. — Dene, in DC. Prod, 
xiii. i. 701 ; Nees in PI. Preiss. i. 490 ; Hook, f FI. Tasm. i. 302 ; P. clebilis, 
Nees in PI. Preiss. i. 491, not of R. Br. 
Hab.: In the interior, . Mitchell ; a most abundant plant. 
The variations of this polymorphous species are so complicated that I have been unable to 
assign them any definite limits as to characters or to geographical range, and it would appear 
that no less than ten of the supposed species enumerated by Decaisne should be included in it, 
the characters derived from supposed duration, from minutiaa in tbe form and hairiness of the 
sepals and bracts, and from the breadth and acuteness of the corolla-lobes having entirely 
broken down. The typical P. varia has the woolly hairs at the base of the leaves copious, the 
sepals not very obtuse and hispid on the opaque centre and extends over the whole range of the 
species. — Benth. 
Order XCVIII. NYCTAGINEiE. 
Perianth simple, inferior, the lower portion persistent and enclosing the 
ovary and fruit, the upper portion variously shaped, with o rarely 4 angles folds 
teeth or lobes, deciduous or withering. Stamens either of the same number as 
the folds or teeth of the perianth or fewer or more, often inconstant in the same 
species, and never more than 20, inserted on (or united at the base with) a 
narrow or cupshaped disk more or less adnate to the stipes of the ovary within 
the perianth (or rarely free from the base ?) ; filaments slender, usually exserted ; 
anthers 2-celled, the cells attached back to back and opening longitudinally 
round the outer margin. Ovary shortly stipitate within the base of the perianth, 
1-celled, with 1 erect anatropous ovule. Style terminal, simple, undivided, with 
a single stigma. Fruit 1-seeded, enclosed in the persistent tough or hardened 
base of the perianth w T hich falls off with it having the apppearance of a pericarp, 
the real pericarp thin and membranous more or less adherent to and often 
inseparable from the equally thin testa of the seed. Embryo curved transversely 
folded or longitudinally convolute around or within a mealy albumen, radicle 
inferior.— Herbs, shrubs or trees, the nodes often tumid and articulate. Leaves 
usually opposite, often unequal in each pair, rarely alternate, usually entire or 
scarcely sinuate. Flowers solitary clustered or umbellate, the bracts in many 
genera not Australian forming an involucre round them sometimes large and 
coloured, but often small, and in the Australian genera the bracts all very small 
and deciduous. 
A small Order of which the genera are all American, and exclusively so with the exception of 
the two found in Australia, which are both of them widely dispersed over the tropical and 
subtropical regions of both the New and the Old World. The third is an introduction. 
Tribe I. IVIirabilieae. Embryo boobed, radicle long. 
Perianth elongate, rarely campanulate, the involucre not changed after flowering 1. *Mirabilis. 
Upper portion of perianth deciduous. No involucre 2. Bocrhaavia. 
Tribe II. Pisonier e.— Embryo straight, radicle short. 
Limb of perianth persistent on the fruit 3. Pisonia. 
1. MIRABILIS, Linn. 
(Name from the Latin, signifying something wonderful or admirable.) 
Flowers regular, hermaphrodite. Calyx petaloid-tubular or tubular-infundi- 
buliform. Limb usually patulous, 5-dentate, membranous-dilated between the 
teeth and induplicate-contorted in the bud ; tube slightly dilated at the base and 
