206 
PLANTS INDIGENOUS TO 
[Caryopliyllea. 
introrse dehiscence. Pollen bright-yellow; its grains spherical, bursting longitudinally. Ovary spherical, 
seated on a very short stipes, containing from about a dozen to many ovules. Style only about / line 
long, capillary, with three rather short stigmatose hardly divergent lobes. Capsule enclosed in the never 
expanding calyx, globose-ovate, completely three-valved, line long; the valves entire and nerveless, 
after dehiscence rolled inward with their margins. Panicles forming a bundle at the bottom of the cavity, 
short. Seeds about £ line long, oblique renate-ovate, scabrid from subtile seriate granules, more or less 
fulvous or grey. Albumen amylaceous. 
In Candolle’s prodromus (i. 376) the South European P. alsinifolium stands recorded also as an Australian 
and South African plant. In Dr. Sonder’s excellent review of South African Caryophylleae only P. tetraphyl- 
lum is admitted. It seems therefore likely, that this plant is merely a pentandrous form of P. tetraphyllum, 
although the specimens from many parts of Australia, subjected to analysis, exhibit only triandrous flowers. 
GYPSOPHILA. 
Linn. Gen. 768. 
Sepals concrete into a five-lobed ebracteolate calyx. Petals 5, exappendiculate, entire or 
emarginate or bidentate, contracted into a cuneate base. Stamens 10, all fertile, or the petaline ones 
rarely sterile. Ovary one-celled, short-stipitate, with many ovules. Funicles very short, attached to 
a central columella. Styles 2, very seldom 3, longitudinally inward stigmatose. Capsule cleft into 4 
rarely 6 valves. Seeds estrophiolate, many or few. Testa wrinkled or granular. 
Herbs or half-shrubs indigenous to the warmer temperate zones of Europe, Asia and Africa, one 
species doubtfully regarded as belonging also to the Australian flora. Leaves opposite, exstipulate. 
Flowers cymose or scattered-solitary, usually small. Petals white or pink. — Endl, Gen. Plant. 971 ; 
Dichoglottis, Fisch. et Meyer, Index Sem. Hort. Petropol. 1835, i. 25. 
Gypsophila tubulosa, Boissier Diagn. Plant. Orient, i. 11; Jos. Hook. Flor. Nov. Zeel. ii. 325; 
Dichoglottis tubulosa, Janb. § Spach, Blustr. Plant. Orient, i. p. 14,/. 6 ; D. Australis, Schlechtehd. Lintuea, 
xx. 631. 
Small, annual , glandulous-pttbescent, erect ; leaves narrow-linear, almost blunt ; flowers axillary, alar 
and terminal, solitary ; pedicels longer tlian tbe flowers ; calyx short- and bluntly-five-lobed, campanulate- 
cylindrical, appressed; petals spathulate- or oblong- or linear-cuneate, less than half exserted, retuse; stamens 
considerably shorter than the corolla , all fertile; styles 2; capsule egg-shaped ; funicular column raised to the 
middle of the capsule; seeds numerous, small; testa seriate-granulated. 
In sandy localities by no means very rare in the Colony of Victoria ; for instance, near Forest Creek, on 
the subalpine summit of Mount Timbertop near Mount Buller, on the Ovens River, in the Murray desert; 
found also in various parts of South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand; indigenous 
in the northern hemisphere to Asia Minor. 
A branched or simple-stemmed herb, usually less than a span high. Root slender, flexnose, descending 
with some capillary tortuous fibres. Stems and branches slender, cylindrical. Leaves from a few lines to 
nearly 1 inch long, line broad, convex and somewhat keeled beneath at the base, membranonsly dilated, 
and thus the leaves of each pair connate at the base. Pedicels from little to several times longer tlian the 
calyx, more or less spreading. Calyx about 2 lines long, consisting of 5, for the greater part concrete, at the 
margin pellucidly membranous, and at the hack gTeen and prominent sepals. Petals usually only short- 
exserted, finely membranous, white or pink, lined with 3 red subtle nerves, also somewhat red-veined, 
generally from 2|-3 lines long, and line broad. Filaments setaceous-linear, about half as long as the 
corolla, finely one-nerved. Anthers didymous-roundish, dorsifixed, only about -jV line long*; cells ellipsoid, 
