Flowers monœcious; the male solitary on a mostly simple naked scape; calyx 4-parted, longer than the cylindraceous 4-cleft corolla; stamens exserted on very long capillary filaments. Female flowers usually 2, sessile at the base of the scape; calyx of 3 or 4 unequal sepals; corolla urn-shaped, with a 3–4-toothed orifice. Ovary with a single cell and ovule, tipped with a long laterally stigmatic style, maturing as an achene. (Name from litus or littus, shore, from the place of growth.)
1. L. lacústris, L. Stoloniferous but otherwise stemless; leaves terete, linear-subulate, 1–2´ long.—In water or on gravelly shores, Nova Scotia and N. Brunswick, to L. Champlain (Pringle) and Ont.
Division III. APETALOUS DICOTYLEDONOUS PLANTS.
Corolla none; the floral envelopes in a single series (calyx), or sometimes wanting altogether.
Order 84. NYCTAGINÀCEÆ. (Four-o'clock Family.)
Herbs (or in the tropics often shrubs or trees), with mostly opposite and entire leaves, stems tumid at the joints, a delicate tubular or funnel-form calyx which is colored like a corolla, its persistent base constricted above the 1-celled 1-seeded ovary, and indurated into a sort of nut-like pericarp; the stamens few, slender, and hypogynous; the embryo coiled around the outside of mealy albumen, with broad foliaceous cotyledons (in Abronia monocotyledonous by abortion).—Represented in our gardens by the Four-o'clock, or Marvel of Peru (Mirábilis Jalápa), in which the calyx is commonly mistaken for a corolla, the cup-like involucre of each flower exactly imitating a calyx.
1. Oxybaphus. Involucre of united bracts. Fruit wingless. Calyx bell shaped.
2. Abronia. Involucre of distinct bracts. Fruit 5-winged. Calyx salver-form.
1. OXÝBAPHUS, Vahl.
Flowers 3–5 in the same 5-lobed membranaceous broad and open involucre, which enlarges and is thin and reticulated in fruit. Calyx with a very short tube and a bell-shaped (rose or purple) deciduous limb, plaited in the bud. Stamens mostly 3 (3–5), hypogynous. Style filiform; stigma capitate. Fruit achene-like, several-ribbed or angled (pubescent in ours).—Herbs, abounding on the western plains, with very large and thick perennial roots, opposite leaves, and mostly clustered small flowers. (Name ὀξυβάφον, a vinegar-saucer, or small shallow vessel; from the shape of the involucre.)