Plumbagineae
A natural order of herbaceous or woody, generally perennial plants, broadly distributed, but, for the most part, abounding in maritime districts and salt lands. Flowers pink, violet, blue, or yellow, rarely white, hermaphrodite, regular, sessile or shortly pedicellate; calyx gamosepalous, tubular or funnel-shaped, sometimes coloured, five, ten, or fifteen-ribbed, the primary ribs produced into teeth or lobes; corolla monopetalous, or of five petals, hypogynous, sometimes shortly connate or coherent, rarely all free at base; stamens five, opposite the petals or corolla lobes. Fruit a capsule or utricle, included in the calyx, or rarely elongated and exserted. Leaves sometimes fascicled at the top of a rhizome, simple, entire, semi-amplexicaul; sometimes shortened into a petiole, dilated at its base, and amplexicaul; sometimes alternate, on a branching stem, with swollen nodes; exstipulate. Certain of the species possess tonic and astringent properties. The Plumbagos contain a caustic colouring matter. Eight genera and scarcely 200 (according to Bentham and Hooker) species are included in this order. Examples are: Armeria, Plumbago, and Statice.