1. GYPSOPHILA, Linn.
Annual or perennial herbs, often glaucous, sometimes glandular-pubescent or hispid. Flowers usually small, paniculate or solitary in the forks of the stem. Calyx campanulate or turbinate, 5-toothed or 5-lobed, with 5 broad green nerves separated by membranous interspaces. Petals 5, with a narrow claw; limb entire or notched. Stamens 10. Ovary 1-celled; styles 2; ovules many. Capsule globose or ovoid, 4-valved to or below the middle. Seeds subreniform, laterally attached, embryo curved round the albumen.
A genus of about 50 species, with the exception of the following one all limited to the Mediterranean region and extratropical Asia.
1. G. tubulosa, Boiss. Diagn. Fl. Or. i. 11.—A dichotomously branched erect or spreading annual 2-6 in. high, glandular-pubescent in all its parts, often viscid; stems and branches slender, terete. Leaves linear-subulate. 16–12 in., rarely longer. Flowers solitary in the forks of the branches, sometimes appearing axillary from one branch only being developed; peduncles slender, ¼–½ in. long. Calyx tubular, with 5 short teeth. Petals red or whitish-red, linear-oblong, slightly exceeding the calyx. Capsule ovoid-oblong, longer than the calyx, 5-valved at the apex. Seeds black, transversely rugose and pitted.—Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. ii. 325; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 22; Benth. Fl. Austral. i. 155; Kirk, Students' Fl. 54.
North Island: East Coast, from Ahuriri to Cape Palliser, Colenso! South Island: Nelson—Tarndale, Travers. Marlborough, Buchanan. Canterbury—Lake Forsyth, Lake Lyndon, Kirk! Rangitata Valley, Sinclair and Haast; Mackenzie Plains and Lake Tekapo, T. F. C.; Lake Ohau, Haast. Otago—Common in the interior. Hector and Buchanan, Petrie! Altitudinal range from sea-level to 3000 ft. November–January.
Also widely diffused in Australia, but found elsewhere only in South Europe and Asia Minor, from whence it was originally described. Several botanists have suggested that it has been introduced both into Australia and New Zealand, but so far as the latter country is concerned no evidence has ever been obtained in support of such a view.
2. STELLARIA, Linn.
Annual or perennial herbs of very various habit, usually low-growing and diffuse, glabrous or pubescent. Flowers white, solitary or cymose, terminal or lateral. Sepals 5, rarely 4. Petals the same number, 2-cleft, rarely wanting. Stamens 10 or fewer by abortion, hypogynous. Ovary 1-celled; styles 3, or rarely 2, 4, or 5; ovules few or many. Capsule globose to oblong, few or many-seeded, dehiscing to below the middle into twice as many valves as styles. Seeds granulate, tuberculate, or pitted.
