FLORA OF ADEN. 
141 
imbricate., rarely contorted. Torus scarcely expanded into a disk, with 
5 glands alternating with the petals, or eglandular, raised in the centre, 
rarely flat. Stamens as many or twice as many (rarely thrice as many) as 
the sepals ; filaments filiform or dilated or connate into a ring ; anthers 
versatile, 2-celled; cells parallel, dehiscing longitudinally. Ovary 3-5- 
(rarely 2-) lobed, 3 — 5-celled. Carpels united with the axis as far as the 
insertion of the ovules, prolonged above into a styliferous beak or into 
styles which are more or less united ; stigmas capitate, linear or ligulate ; 
ovules 1—2 or many in each cell, anatropous, pendulous; raphe ventral. 
Fruit capsular, 3 — 5-lobed; lobes 1-seeded, often separating from the 
axis, septicidal or loculicidal; rarely berried. Seeds pendulous, horizon- 
tal or ascending, usually exarillate ; testa membranous, rarely subcrus- 
taceous ; albumen scanty or absent, rarely thick and fleshy ; embryo 
straight or curved ; cotyledons flat, planoconvex or variously folded, 
foliaceous or thick, rarely fleshy ; radicle short, straight, looking towards 
the hilum, or longer, inflexed or usually incumbent on the cotyledons. 
Genera 20 ; species about 800. 
Distribution : —Temperate and subtropical regions of both hemispheres. 
1. Erodium L’Herit. 
Herbs, rarely undershrubs ; branches swollen or jointed at the nodes. 
Leaves usually pinnately divided. 
Flowers regular or irregular ; peduncles axillary, umbelled at the 
apex, rarely 1-flowered. Sepals 5, imbricate. Petals 5, hypogynous, 
imbricate, with alternating glands. Stamens 5, alternating with 5 
staminodes. Ovary 5-lobed, 5-celled, beaked, the beak running into a 
style with 5 longitudinally stigmatose branches ; ovules 2 in each cell 
more or less superposed. 
Lobes of the capsule 1-seeded, separating septifragally from the axis 
the beaks rolling up elastically from the base to the apex, hairy on the 
inner surface, each with usually 2 pits at the top below the beak. 
Seeds exalbuminous ; embryo incumbent on the induplicate or flexuose 
radicle. 
Species about 50. 
Distribution : — Chiefly in temperate regions in the northern hemisphere 
of the Old World. 
1. Erodium malacoides (L) Willd. Phyt. I (1794) 10 ; Willd. Spec 
PI. Ill (1800) 639; DC. FI. Franc. *IV (1805) 842; DC. Prodr. I 
(1824) 648 n. 34; Sibth. et Smith, FI. Graec. VII (1830) 53, t. 658; 
Koch Synops. FI. Germ. ed. I, (1837) 142; Gren. et Godr. FI. France I 
(1848) 308; Boiss. FI. Or. I (1867) 893; Willk. et Lange, Prod f . FI. 
