262 
NYCTAGINACEJE. 
Order LXXIX. NYCTAGINACEiE. 
Flowers hermaphrodite or polygamo-dioicous. Perianth herbaceous 
or coloured, with a long or short funnel-shaped tube and a shortly 
5-toothed or lobed spreading limb. Stamens variable in number, hy- 
pogynous ; filaments filiform, often connate at the base ; anthers 2- 
celled, dehiscing longitudinally. Ovary superior, 1-celled, 1-ovuled ; 
style filiform ; stigma various. Fruit an achene or utricle, usually 
enclosed in the accrescent usually viscose tube of the perianth. Seed 
albuminous. — Shrubs, trees, or herbs, with exstipulate simple opposite 
or alternate leaves, the flowers small or large, various in position and 
arrangement. Distrib. Cosmopolitan in the tropics. Species 100. 
Flower enclosed in a calyx-like involucre * Mirabilis. 
Bracts minute, caducous. 
Shrubs ; stamens 5-10 1 . Pisonia. 
Herbs ; stamens 2-3 2. Boerhaavia. 
# Mirabilis Jalapa , Linn. ; Choisy in DC. Prod. xiii. 2, 427, a com- 
monly-cultivated species of Tropical American origin, is casually sub- 
spontaneous in Mauritius ( Sieber , 221 ! etc.) It is a subglabrous 
dichotomously-branched perennial herb, with opposite petioled ovate 
acute leaves, flowers 3 to 6 together in terminal fascicles expanding at 
night, red, yellow, white, or variegated, each enclosed in a calyx-like 
involucre with 5 long lanceolate teeth, a cylindrical perianth-tube 
1-lf in. long, a spreading limb an inch broad with 5 round lobes, 5 
stamens incurved at the tip with minute anthers, and an obovoid or 
subglobose black 10-ribbed fruit surrounded by the indurated base of 
the perianth. Belle de Nuit. 
1. PISONIA, Linn. 
Flowers polygamo-dioicous, greenish. Male perianth funnel-shaped, 
with short spreading deltoid lobes. Stamens 5-10, exserted, unequal ; 
filaments filiform ; anthers globose. Female perianth longer and nar- 
rower, with rudiments of stamens round the elongated ovary ; style- 
exserted, usually lateral ; stigma bifid or multifid. Fruit surrounded 
by the indurated clavate pentagonal perianth, which has often a row of 
small spreading glandular bristles on each rib ; achene nearly or quite 
as long as the perianth and the same shape. — Climbing or erect shrubs 
or trees, sometimes spiny, with alternate or opposite simple leaves, the 
numerous small greenish flowers in dense or lax corymbose panicles. 
Distrib. Cosmopolitan in the tropics, mostly American. Species 30. 
Fruit-periantb witb a row of bard viscid bristles on tbe five ribs. . 
Prickly climber * P. aculeata. 
Unarmed erect trees. 
Pedicels 0 or very short 1. P. macrophylla. 
Pedicels distinct 2. P. viscosa. 
Fruit-periantb without bristles on the ribs. 
Limb of perianth \ in. across 3. P. costata. 
Limb of perianth ^ in. across 4. P. Calpidia. 
