Page:Illustrations of Indian Botany, Vol. 2.djvu/103

ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDIAN BOTANY.

47 others : filaments distinct, subulate : anthers bilocular, bursting longitudinally. Nectariferous scales (abortive stamens), one at, the base of each ovarium, sometimes obsolete. Ovaria equal in number to the petals, and opposite to them, 1 celled, and tapering each into a short style, distinct, or slightly connected at the base. Fruit of several follicles, opening by the ventral suture. Seeds variable in number. Embryo straight in the axis of thin, fleshy albumen : radicle pointing to the hilum. Leaves succulent (or very rarely membranaeceous), entire, or pinnatifid, exstipulate."

DeCandolle places this order between Portulaceae and Parom/chiaceae on the one side and Ficoideae on the other, but if the views I have ventured to promulgate respecting the affinities of these three orders prove correct, this one must, of necessity be removed from that station. Assuming that they are correct, and that the series of peripetalous calyciflorous orders is to be re-arranged, I would suggest that Crassulaceae and Saxifrageae should stand next each other, as being really the most nearly allied of the series, that Cacteae and Grossulaceae be placed near Mi/rtaceae followed by Passifioreae and Papayaceae as having the inferior ovary of those preceding and the parietal placentas of those following. Crassulaceae and Saxifrageae might follow these, being associated with them by their superior, or only half inferior ovary, but sepa- rated on either side by their central placentation, while they approach each other by the intro- flexed margins of their carpels, and straight embryo in the middle of a more or less copious fleshy albumen. The Cur embrt/ose orders, all of which have free ovaries, would then conclude the series. The free polyspermous apocarpous ovaries and perigynous flowers of Crassulaceae sufficiently distinguish them from all others.

The Cape of Good Hope is unquestionably the head-quarters of the order, nearly one half of the species being natives of that country. The Canaries seem to hold the second place, there being 18 found in these Islands, while the whole of Europe only gives 52— DeCandolle assigns three only to India and 4 to China and Japan, some further acquaintance with these countries will probably greatly enlarge that, list as it has already done in India by the discovery of about. oO on the Himalayas. This 1'aot in addition to those stated above, show that the high heat of the tropics is unfavourable, but that they prefer the warmer climates bordering on them. Their habits and power of enduring exposure to heat and dryness, as above remarked, is very peculiar.

"They are. found in the dryest situations where not a blade of grass or a particle of moss can grow, on naked rocks, old walls, sandy hot plains, alternately exposed to the heaviest dews at night and the purest rays of the noonday sun. Soil is to them a something to keep them stationary rather than a source of nutriment, which in these plants is conveyed by myriads of mouths, invisible to the naked eye but covering all their surface, to the juicy beds of cellular tissue which lie beneath them" (Lindley). The truth of these opinions is strongly corroborated by the observations of Botanists in attempting to dry them. Instances are on record where species of these plants have been known to continue for months and even years in a state of insipient vegetation in the Herbarium.

Little is known regarding their properties. The stone crop of Europe ( Sedum acre J and some others are known to possess considerable acrimony but gene- rally they are considered refrigerent and detergent. They have not been used medicinally.

Only two genera are known in this portion of India containing between them only 5 species, and two of these, Kalanchoe florebunda and K. hete- rophylla not well known.

This I am enabled to state from finding my specimen of the former, consisting of two fragments,containing two species. Most probably one of them is K. helerophylla, but which is not easily determined, Roxburgh's character of that species being so loosely constructed that it might include the whole. Retaining therefore our character of K. florebunda, which applies to only one of the two, I shall adopt Roxburgh's name for the other, which is at once di tinguished from the rest by the sepals, which in them are free to the base, but in this cohere two thirds of their length, forming a somewhat campanulate iufiated calyx, ending abruptly in a point, and like all