POLYGALE.®. 
49 
scarcely more than half an inch in breadth, alternate, petiolate, 
ovato-lanceolate, acuminate with the apex blunt, acute at the 
base, entire, coriaceous, glabrous, shining, nerveless: petiole 
short, puberulous. Racemes axillary, solitary : peduncle shorter 
than the petiole: flowers rather small, white, shortly pedicelled. 
Calycine sepals 5, imbricated during aestivation, unequal, united 
at the base : the 3 outer sepals small, ovate, acute ; the 2 inner 
larger, orbiculate, concave. The two upper petals pubescent, 
ciliated ; the lower one concave at the apex, ciliated, green. 
Stamens inonadelphous : anthers white. Ovary stipitate, orbicu- 
late, compressed, slightly puberulous : style erect : stigma blunt. 
Capsule obcordate, glabrous, 2-seeded ; seed oval, arillated. 
III. Securidaca. 
Calycine sepals 5 , with the “2 inner ones petaliform. 
Petals 5, slightly connected at the base ; 3 of them 
united into a 3-lobed keel ; the other 2 oblong. Sta- 
mens 8, diadelphous. Capsule ovate, indehiscent, 
one-celled, expanded at the apex into a leaf-like wing. 
Seed pendulous from the apex of the cell : albumen 
none De Cand. 
Suft'ruticose plants, with alternate leaves, of an ovate or ob- 
long figure, and with the flowers racemose. — Nome, derived 
from the Latin, securis a hatchet, in allusion to the form of 
the pod. 
1. Securidaca virgata. Purple Securidaca. 
Glabrous, stem sarmentose, branches virgate, leaves 
elliptic rounded at the apex subacute at the base, ra- 
cemes terminal, wing of the capsule rounded. 
Swartz, FI. Ind. Occ. III. 1231. — Broione, 287 — Plum. t. 
248. f. 1. 
HAB. Common. 
FL. November — February. 
Ascending to a considerable height, supporting itself on 
neighbouring trees and shrubs : branches alternate, divaricating, 
long and twiggy, terete, glabrous. Leaves l ’-2 inches in 
length, elliptic, very obtuse at the apex, subacute at the base, 
occasionally subemarginate, concave beneath, puberulous to the 
glass on both sides, obscurely nerved : petiole about 3 lines in 
length, and, like the extremities of the branches, puberulous. 
Racemes terminal, subdivided : branches distichallv arranged, 
subsimple, many-flowered : pedicels nearly an inch in length, 
filiform, coloured, puberulous, 1 -flowered, articulated on a pro- 
minent excavated tubercle on the common peduncle. Flowers 
VOL. I. E 
