Page:Illustrations of Indian Botany, Vol. 1.djvu/228

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 * 1. Paramignya monophylla, R.W. (Micromelum? monophylum)—natural size.
 * 2. An expanded flower.
 * 3. The same, the calyx partially separated and the petals and stamens removed, to show the cup-shaped plaited torus, ovary, style, and stigma.
 * 4. Stamens and anthers, filament compressed, subulate at the apex.
 * 5. The 5-celled ovary eut transversely.
 * 6. The same cut vertically, showing the ovules superposed.
 * 7. A portion of a leaf magnified, to show the pellucid dots.

 

In proportion to the extent of its distribution over the surface of the earth this is a small order, about 160 or 170 species being all that is yet known, though found in every quarter of the globe. Its forms are about as varied as its distribution, consisting of herbs, shrubs, and trees. The juice is usually resinous, often yellow, resembling that of the Guttiferae : the stem in most, and the branches in nearly all, have swollen articulations, and are 4-sided in the intervals between the joints. The leaves are opposite, simple, entire, or crenulated; with marginal glands; sessile, or attenuated into the petiols, for the most part perforated with pellucid glandular points, the margins sometimes marked with black opaque dots. The flowers are regular, bisexual, often forming terminal dichotomous cymes, and usually yellow.

Calyx persistent of 4-5 sepals imbricated in aestivation. Petals hypogynous, twisted in aestivation, obliquely veined, as many as the sepals, alternate with them, usually withering, becoming, after anthesis (blowing) variously twisted or involute on the margin in different species. Stamens indefinite 3-5 adelphous, rarely monadelphous, or quite distinct. Anthers versatile, dehiscing longitudinally. Ovary solitary, consisting of 3-5 united carpels, 3-5 celled, cells with numerous ovules. Styles as many as the carpels, distinct or connate. Stigmas simple or capitate. Fruit baccate, or capsular with several valves, and a septicidal dehiscence, usually several celled with the placentse in the axis, sometimes 1-celled with the placentae, parietal. Seeds minute, indefinite, or few, in each cell, albumen none. Embryo straight, radicle next the hilum.

The relationship existing between this order and Guttiferae seems to be universally admitted, as in all systems of Botany they are placed near each other, but yet the differences seem so manifest, that it appears next to impossible to confound them. This I am disposed to attribute to the circumstance of their most striking points of affinity appertaining lather to the products of vegetation and properties than to their botanical characters, i. e. the structure and arrangement of the parts of fructification: which are sufficiently distinct in the two orders. The capsular, few celled polyspermous fruit, of Hypericineae, can scarcely be mistaken for the baccate indehiscent few seeded pulpy orange-like fruit of the Guttiferae—exclusive of which the quinary, not dinary or quaternary disposition of the flowers, form another very marked distinction : in a word, considered with reference to the structure of their inflorescence only, the marked affinity found to exist between the two orders is only perceptible in extreme cases, while the differences observed in the character of the fruit of different genera, renders it difficult to say to how many other orders they approach.

Few orders of the same extent have an equally general distribution over the surface of the globe ; every quarter partaking more or less extensively. India, and the adjoining islands, judging from Wallich's list participating, with the exception of North America, more largely than any other, 31 Indian ones being there enumerated, while 41 is the number set down for the whole of North America, and 19 for Europe. The Peninsular Flora however, so far as is yet known, boasts of very few, four or five species only having been discovered, and all from the more elevated regions. These, according to a recent exposition of the order by M. Spach, (Annates des Sciences JValurelles) are referred, and on good grounds, to two distinct genera, Norysca and Brathys, the former including our Hypericum mysurense. and Hookerianum, the latter H. japonicum and Wightianum, which for the future will respectively be called Norysca mysurensis and Hookeriana, and Brathy's japonica and Wightiana. The characters of these genera will be afterwards given. 