30 
PLANTS INDIGENOUS TO 
[Cniciferce. 
The question is yet open for discussion, whether P. horridum is really specific distinct from the only 
known South African Poppy, P. aculeatum, Thunb. Prodr. Flor. Cap. 431 (P. Gariepinum, Burch), which, 
according- to the diagnosis of Candolle and Elkan, and according- to the figure and description furnished by 
Sir Will. Hooker (Bot. Magaz. 3623), as already stated by the last-mentioned eminent botanist, seems not to 
differ from the Australian species, unless in the seeds or placentae. Should their identity he finally proved, 
my opinion, that the Papaver horridum is an introduction from abroad, would he greatly strengthened. 
The marks of distinction separating- our species from the common red Poppy of England, Papaver 
Rhoeas L., which occasionally occurs in the corn fields of Australia, are obvious, consisting- in much more rigid 
and less copious not hair-like bristles, in the placentae not reaching to near the middle of the capsule, in not 
dark-purplish filaments of less than half the length of the petals, in the less saturated red color and minor 
size of the latter, in the teeth of the stigmatiferous disk not overlapping each other and being considerably 
smaller, and in some other notes. Less marked are its differences from the European Papaver dubium, 
consisting in rigid nowhere appressed indument, and not violet anthers. To P. setigerum, with which it 
has been compared by Candolle, it has but remote affinity. 
Order CBTTCIEEBiE. 
Adanson, Families des Plantes, ii. 409. 
Sepals 4, free, deciduous, imbricate, rarely valvate iu aestivation, the two outer 
ones generally narrower. Petals 4, alternate with the sepals, placed crosswise, free, 
rarely -wanting. Stamens six, tetradynamous ; the two shorter ones in front of the 
lateral sepals, the four longer ones facing pairwise the anterior and posterior sepal, 
2 or 4 rarely missing, all free or occasionally some connate, very seldom numerous. 
Anthers two-celled, introrse, with longitudinal dehiscence. Style simple or obliterated. 
Stigmas 2, very rarely 4, sometimes confluent, always in a line -with the placentae. 
Silique or silicle two-valved, by a spurious dissepiment two-celled, rarely one-celled 
or valveless, or transversely septate and breaking across, very rarely four-valyed. 
Beplum often persistent. Seeds one, two or more in each cell, without albumen, 
affixed to the intervalvular narrow placentae. Embryo curved, oily. Cotyledons 2, 
bent or folded on the cylindrical radicle, very rarely 4 and almost spiral. 
Herbaceous sometimes suffrutieose plants of volatile often antiscorbutic acridity, 
some highly valuable as culinary vegetables, distributed over every country, except 
some lowiands of the intertropical zone. Their juice limpid. Leaves simple, entire 
or variously toothed or divided, alternate, very rarely in part opposite. Eacemes 
opposite to the leaves or terminal, occasionally corymbose or spicate, in development 
centripetal, sometimes leafy-bracteate. Bracteoles and stipules wanting. Petals 
white, yellow, pink, less frequently red or purple, rarely blue.— Cand. Syst. ii. 137; 
Midi. Gen. 861; Lindl. Peg. Kingdom, iii. p. 351; Ilenfrey's Elem. Course of Bot. 
233; Sclmizlein?s Analysen, 44. 
Cruciferae are frequent throughout Europe, extratropical Asia and North 
America, less numerous at and towards the northern and southern extremes of Africa 
