FLORA OF ADEN . 
121 
VII. PORTILACACEJB. 
Herbs or shrubs, usually more or less succulent and glabrous. Leaves 
alternate or opposite, entire, often succulent, with scarious or setose 
stipular appendages. 
Flowers solitary or capitate and terminal, racemose or cymosely 
panicled, occasionally axillary. Sepals usually 2, free or adnate to the 
ovary at the base, much imbricate. Petals 4-5, sometimes more, hypo- 
gv nous or perigynous, free or connate at the base. Stamens 4 to many, 
inserted with the petals and often adnate to them at the base ; filaments 
filiform ; anthers 2-celled ; cells parallel, dehiscing longitudinally. 
Ovary free or semi-inferior, 1-celled ; ovules 2 to many on basal funicles 
or a central column, amphitropous ; style 2-8-fid, branches longitudinally 
stigmatose. 
Capsule membranous or crustaceous, circumsciss or dehiscing by as 
many valves as there are styles. Seeds 1 or many, compressed ; embryo 
curved round mealy albumen. 
Genera 15 ; species about 120. 
Distribution : — Old World, but chiefly America. 
1. Portulaca L. 
Fleshy spreading or erect herbs. Leaves alternate, subopposite or 
opposite, often whorled around the flowers with squamiform or setose 
stipular appendages, plane or terete. 
Flowers terminal, solitary or fascicled, sessile or pedicellate. Sepals 
2, united at the base into a tube adnate to the ovary, the free part 
above deciduous. Petals 4-6, inserted on the top of the tube of the 
calyx just where it becomes free from the ovary. Stamens 8 or nu- 
merous, inserted at the base of the petals. Ovary half-inferior, multi- 
ovulate. Style 2-3-8-fid. 
Capsule membranous or rather crustaceous, half-inferior, with cir- 
cumscissile dehiscence. Seeds numerous, compressed, reniform. Embryo 
peripheric. 
Species about 16. 
Distribution : — Australia, Africa, chiefly Tropical America. 
1. Portulaca quadrifida L. DC. Prodr. Ill, 354. 
Portulaca anceps Rich. FI. Abyss. I, 801. 
Portulaca linifolia Forsk. descr. p. 92. 
Illecebrum verticillatum Burm. FI. Ind. p. 66. 
