Dicotyledons with Gamopetalous Flowers . 
55 
Natural Order 
LOBELIACEzE. 
Diagnosis.— Herbs, or rarely shrubs, with milky juice, alternate leaves 
and irregular flowers. Stamens epigynous, as many as corolla-lobes and 
alternate with them ; anthers syngenesious. Ovary inferior. 
Distribution. —A small Natural Order very nearly allied to Campanulacese, of which it is usually 
regarded as a Tribe, differing in the irregular flowers and more completely coherent anthers. Chiefly 
Tropical, South Temperate and North American. 
One British Genus; Species 2. 
Calyx adherent or rarely nearly free, with a 5-lobed limb. 
COROLLA usually epigynous, the limb 1 or 2-lipped and the tube longitudinally split in Lobelia. 
Anthers coherent in a tube around the style. 
Fruit a capsule or berry. 
USES, &c.—The species are generally dangerous, acrid and narcotic. A few .American species are used 
medicinally. The brilliant scarlet-flowered Lobelia cardinalis of the United States and the blue L. Erinus of the 
Cape of Good Hope are commonly cultivated for ornament, as are also in plant-houses Tropical American species 
of Centropogon and Siphocampylus. 
