110 
FLORA OF ADEN. 
Description : — An annual, 4-10 inches high, erect, branched from 
the base, glabrous or pubescent. Leaves very variable, inches 
long, obovate, suborbicular or linear-oblong, rather thick, coriaceous, 
glabrous, ciliate, mucronate ; petioles inch long, hairy. 
Flowers yellow, fading to pink, in axillary or extra-axillary, short, 
almost capitate, few-flowered racemes; crest of a single tubular 
appendage multifid only at the apex; pedicels very short; bracts 
small, membranous, oblong-ovate, acute, ciliate, persistent. Outer 
sepals broadly ovate, acuminate, with broad, membranous, ciliate 
margins. Wings herbaceous, oblique, ovate-oblong, acuminate, with 
narrow, membranous margins, ciliate towards the base, longer than 
the capsule. 
Capsules didymous, orbicular-oblong, strongly ciliate, obliquely 
obcordate at the apex, narrowly margined. Seeds hairy ; strophiole 
glabrous or nearly so, rounded at the aj:ex, furnished with 3 mem- 
branous basal appendages. 
locality : — Aden (O. Kuntze Rev. Gen. PL I, 49, Lunt). 
Distribution : — Tropical Asia and Australia. 
VI. — CARYOPHYLLACEvE, 
Annual or perennial herbs, often woody below. Leaves opposite, 
entire, exstipulate or stipules membranous. 
Inflorescence usually a dichotomous cyme, rarely racemose or solitary. 
Flowers regular, usually hermaphrodite. Sepals 4 — 5, free or connate, 
imbricate in bud. Petals 4 — 5, rarely 0, inserted on a hypogynous or 
more rarely perigynous ring, imbricate. Stamens 8 or 10, rarely fewer, 
inserted with the petals ; anthers 2-celled ; cells parallel, dehiscing longi- 
tudinally. Ovary free, sessile or shortly stipitate, 1- celled or imperfectly 
divided at the base, with a free central or basal placenta ; styles 2 — 5, free 
or connate, stigmatose above on the inner side ; ovules indefinite, rarely 
definite. 
Fruit usually a dry capsule, dehiscing by teeth or valves. Seeds 
usually indefinite, with a mealy albumen and more or less curved peri- 
pherical orexcentric embryo ; testa membranous or crustaceous ; cotyle- 
dons narrow, incumbent, rarely accumbent. 
Genera 35 ; species about 800. 
Distribution : — Throughout the globe, chiefly in extra-tropical regions 
of the northern hemisphere. 
Ovary many-ovuled- — 
Capsule 3-vaIved ...... . 1. Polycarpsea. 
Capsule 4-valved . . . . . . .3. Gypsophila. 
Ovary 2-ovuled . . . . . • ,2. Sphaerocoma. 
