[*][*] _Amphibious perennials; leaves with stellate scales, the floating ones obovate and 3-nerved, the submersed linear (all uniform and narrow in terrestrial forms) flowers usually between a pair of bracts._ 2. C. vérna, L. Fruit (½´´ long) higher than broad, obovate, slightly obcordate, usually thickest at the base, sessile, its lobes sharply keeled or very narrowly winged above, and with a wide groove between them; stigmas shorter than the fruit, almost erect, usually deciduous; floating leaves crowded in a tuft, obovate, narrowed into a petiole.--Common in stagnant waters, Penn. and N. J. to Fla., west to Minn., Tex., and the Pacific. (Eu.) 3. C. heterophýlla, Pursh. Fruit smaller, as broad or broader than high, deeply emarginate, thick, almost ventricose, sessile or nearly so, its lobes obtusely angled, with a small groove between them; stigmas as long as the fruit, erect, persistent; floating leaves crowded in a tuft, broadly spatulate, often retuse, abruptly narrowed into a long petiole.--Stagnant water, N. Y. and N. J. to S. Ind. and Mo. [*][*][*] _Submersed perennial, with numerous uniform linear 1-nerved leaves; flowers without bracts; carpels separate nearly to the axis._ 4 C. autumnàlis, L. Stems 3--6´ high; fruit large (1´´ wide or more), flattened, circular, deeply and narrowly notched, sessile or nearly so, its lobes broadly winged, and with a very deep and narrow groove between them; stigmas very long, reflexed, deciduous; leaves all linear from a broader base, retuse or notched at the tip (2--6´´ long).--W. Mass., Lake Champlain and N. New York, Lake Superior, and westward. (Eu.) ORDER 40. MELASTOMÀCEÆ. (MELASTOMA FAMILY.) _Plants with opposite 3--7-ribbed leaves, and definite stamens, the anthers opening by pores at the apex; otherwise much as in the_ Onagraceæ.--All tropical, except the genus 1. RHÉXIA, L. DEER-GRASS. MEADOW-BEAUTY. Calyx-tube urn-shaped, coherent with the ovary below, and continued above it, persistent, 4-cleft at the apex. Petals 4, convolute in the bud, oblique, inserted along with the 8 stamens on the summit of the calyx-tube. Anthers long, 1-celled, inverted in the bud. Style 1; stigma 1. Capsule invested by the permanent calyx, 4-celled, with 4 many-seeded placentæ projecting from the central axis. Seeds coiled like a snail shell, without albumen.--Low perennial herbs, often bristly, with mostly sessile 3--5-nerved and bristly-edged leaves, and large showy cymose flowers; in summer; the petals falling early. (A name in Pliny for some unknown plant, probably from ῥῆξις, _a crevice_, from the place of growth.) [*] _Anthers linear, curved, with a minute spur on the back at the attachment of the filament above its base; flowers cymose, peduncled._