FLORA OF THE MALAY PENINSULA 
VOLUME III 
Order CIX. NYCTAGINEZE. 
Herbs, shrubs or trees. Leaves usually opposite. Flowers 
hermaphrodite (or unisexual) regular. Perianth monopetalous, 
petaloid, tube persistent enclosing fruit (usually), lobes plicate in 
bud. Stamens i to 30; filaments unequal. Ovary free, i-celled; 
ovule 1, erect basal. Fruit indehiscent, enclosed in tube. About 
220 species, all warm regions. (Gamble, Journ. As.Soc. Beng. 
lxxv. 2.) Cultivated plants in our gardens belonging to this 
Order are the Bougainvilleas of S. America, and Mirabilis jalap a, 
the Marvel of Peru, a tuberous herb with flowers of all colours. 
Herbs with pink flowers; flowers bisexual . . .1. Boerhaavia 
Trees or shrubs, one spiny; flowers unisexual, green or 
white. 2. Pisonia 
1 . BOERHAAVIA, Linn. 
Herbs, sub-erect or prostrate, diffuse. Leaves opposite. 
Flowers small, panicled sub-umbellate, or sub-capitate, pink 
(rarely white). Perianth-tube usually short, ovoid below; limb 
funnel-shaped, 5-lobed. Stamens 1 to 5, exsert connate below 
ovary; filaments capillary. Ovary stipitate. Fruit small, en¬ 
closed in the viscid calyx-tube. Species about 30, tropics and 
sub-tropics, usually in sea sand. 
Flowers capitate . . . . . . . . (1) B. diffusa 
Flowers umbelled . . . . . . . (2) B. repanda 
(1) B. diffusa Linn. Sp. PL 3. B. repens Linn. Sp. Pl. 3; 
Gamble, Journ. As. Soc. Beng., l.c. 2. (Fig. 132, p. 2.) 
Prostrate herb; branches often ascending 12 to 18 in. tall, 
slender, interaodes long. Leaves ovate or orbicular, rather fleshy, 
blunt or acute, truncate or cordate at base, x in. long or less, -5 in. 
wide; petioles -3 in. long. Flowers bright rose-pink in very small 
heads in slender panicles 1 to 2 in. - long. Perianth -05 in. long. 
Stamens 2. Fruit -05 in. long, obovate. Rob. Seashores in 
sand. Singapore, Galang. Province Wellesley, Telok Ayer Tawar. 
