280 
Order CCIX. STILBACE^. 
STiLBiNEiE, Kunth in Verhandl. Kdnigl. Acad. Wissensch. Berol. {Marz. 1831); Martins 
Conspectus, No. 109. (1835). 
Essential Character. — Calyx tubular, campanulate, with a 5-cleft limb, the seg- 
ments of which are equal ; the tw^o lower sometimes cut deeper ; seldom 5-leaved ; persist- 
ent. Corolla monopetalous, hypogynous ; the tube enlarged upwards, hairy in the throat ; 
the limb 5-parted, spreading, somewhat 2-lipped, rarely 4-parted, and nearly regular ; 
.Estivation valvate. Stamens equal in number to the segments of the corolla, inserted 
into the top of the tube of the corolla, alternate, exserted, nearly equal, the upper one of 
five always rudimentary, or even obliterated ; filaments free, shortened in the bud ; anthers 
elliptical, *oblong, attached by the back, 2-celled ; opening longitudinally by their face. 
Ovary superior, sessile, 2-celled ; cells with only one ovule ; one cell sometimes smaller 
and empty ; ovule erect ; style terminal, filiform, exserted ; stigma simple, emarginate. 
Disk 0. Fruit dry, 1 -seeded, indehiscent, surrounded hy the permanent calyx. — Cape 
shrubs, with the habit of a Phylica or a Fir. Leaves whorled, close, narrow, entire, 
leathery, rigid, articulated at the base, without stipules. Flowers in dense spikes at the 
point of the branches, sessile, each with 3 bracts at the base, occasionally polygamous. 
Kunth. 
Affinities. These differ from Selaginacese in little except their 2-celled 
anthers, erect ovules, and want of an hypogynous disk. Kunth also assimilates 
this order to Globulariacese, and considers it as it were intermediate between 
the two. 
Geography. Cape of Good Hope. 
Properties. Unknown. 
GENERA. 
Stilbe, L. 
Luhea, Schmidt. 
Campylostachys, Kunth. 
Group V. 
Essential Character. — Fruit consisting of two carpels, capsular, with a distinct cen- 
tral placenta; if divided into lobes then either membranous and capsular, or succulent, never 
nucamentaceous. Flowers never gyrate. 
At first sight this extensive gi'oup would seem to divide into two series, 
the one with regular, the other with irregular flowers ; but upon a full consi- 
deration of the various connecting points and transition- cases which exist in such 
unusual abundance among these plants, I am induced to think it will be better 
to consider the whole as forming one great group, and to employ the regula- 
rity or irregularity of the corolla merely as a character of the aUiances. Jas- 
minacese which stand at the very end of the group are probably most nearly 
allied to the Echial alliance ; while Pedaliacese at its commencement seems to 
offer the transition from nucamentaceous to capsular organization. 
Alliance I. BIGNOMALES. 
Essential Character — Flowers unsymmetrical, usually didynamous. Seeds often 
with wings or tail-like processes. Albumen 0. Stalks of the seeds never hooked. 
