The order is divided into two well-defined tribes which are distinguished by the character of the flower and the arrangements for ensuring pollination.
Tribe I. Alsineae: the sepals are free and the flowers are open, with spreading petals, and the honey which is secreted at the base of the stamens is exposed to the visits of short-tongued insects, such as flies and small bees; the petals are white in colour. It includes several British genera, Cerastium (mouse-ear chickweed), Stellaria (fig. 1) (stitchwort and chickweed), Arenaria (sandwort), Sagina (pearlwort), Spergula (spurrey) and Spergularia (sandwort spurrey).
Tribe II. Sileneae: the sepals are joined below to form a narrow tube, in which stand the long claws of the petals and the stamens, partly closing the tube and rendering the honey inaccessible to all but long-tongued insects such as the larger bees and Lepidoptera. The flowers are often red. It includes several British genera:—Dianthus (pink) fig. 2, Silene (catchfly, bladder campion), Lychnis (campion, L. Flos-Cuculi is ragged robin), and Githago or Agrostemma (corn cockle). Several, such as Lychnis vespertina, Silene nutans and others, are night-flowering, opening their flowers and becoming scented in the evening or at night, when they are visited by night-flying moths.
The plants of this order are of little or no economic value, soap-wort, Saponaria officinalis, forming a lather in water was formerly officinal. Dianthus (carnation and pink) Gypsophila, Lychnis and others, are garden plants.
CASABIANCA, RAPHAEL, Comte de (1738-1825), French general, was descended from a noble Corsican family. In 1769 he took the side of France against Genoa, then mistress of the island. In 1793, having entered the service of the revolutionary government, he was appointed lieutenant-general in Corsica in place of Pascale Paoli, who was outlawed for intrigues with England. For his defence of Calvi against the English he was appointed general of division, and he served in Italy from 1794 to 1798. After the 18th of Brumaire he entered the senate and was made count of the empire in 1806. In 1814 he joined the party of Louis XVIII., rejoined Napoleon during the Hundred Days, and in 1819 succeeded again in entering the chamber of peers.
His nephew, Louis de Casabianca (1762-1798), entered the French navy, served in the convoy of the French troops sent to aid the revolted American colonies, and took part in various naval actions off the North American coast. He became captain in 1792, represented Corsica in the Convention, and then received command of the Orient, which at the battle of the Nile bore the flag of Admiral Brueys. When the latter was killed, Casabianca, though badly wounded, fought the burning ship to the end, and perished with most of the crew. His son, Giacomo Jocante, a boy of ten years of age, refused to leave the ship and died in trying to save his father. This heroic act was the subject of several poems, including the well-known ballad by Mrs. Hemans.
CASABLANCA (Dar el Baida, “the white house”), a seaport on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, in 33° 27′ N., 7° 46′ W. It is a wool and grain port for central Morocco, chiefly for the provinces of Tadla and Shawia. Third in importance of the towns on the Moorish coast, unimpeded by bar or serious rocks, the roadstead is exposed to the north-west winds. There is anchorage for steamers in 5 to 6 fathoms. Vessels were loaded and discharged by lighters from the beach. In May 1907 the construction began of harbour works which afford sheltered accommodation for ships at all states of the tide. The value of the foreign trade of the port for the period 1897-1907 was about £750,000 a year. A railway to Ber Reshid, the first section of a line intended to tap the rich agricultural region of which Casablanca is the port, was opened in September 1908, being the first railway built in Morocco. The population, about 20,000, includes numerous foreign merchants, Franciscan and Protestant missions, and a consular corps. Built by the Portuguese upon the site of the once prosperous town of Anfa, which they had destroyed in 1468, Casablanca was held by them for some time, till trouble with the natives compelled them to abandon it. In August 1907, in consequence of the murder of a number of French and Spanish workmen engaged on the harbour works, the town was bombarded and occupied by the French (see [Morocco]: History).