Caryophyllaceæ, Clove

-WORTS, n. pl. [Gr. karuon, nut; phyllon, leaf.] ( Bot. ) An order of plants, alliance Silen a les. DIAG. Symmetrical flowers, a conspicuous corolla, amphitropal ovules, and opposite leaves, without stipules. They are mostly herbaceous plants, with stems swollen at the joinings, and opposite, entire, and exstipulate leaves. The flowers are usually hermaphrodite, and the sepals, petals, and stamens exhibit a quaternary or quinary arrangement. The stamens are hypogynous, the anthers innate. The ovary is commonly 1-celled, with from two to five styles. The fruit is a 1-celled capsule, or rarely 2-5-celled, generally with central placenta, to which the seeds are attached. The plants of this order are natives chiefly of temperate and cold regions. When found in the tropics, they are generally on the slopes and summits of mountains, often reaching the limits of eternal snow. Lindley gives 59 genera and 1,055 species. They po e no important properties. Some of the plants have showy flowers, as the species of Dianthus, Silene, and Lychnis. in the mountains of Chita; after an E. course of 180 m., it falls into the Meta in about Lat. 5° 58′ N. On this river is a small town of same name, in Lat. 5° 56' N., Lon. 71° 50′ W. Casano'va de Seingalt, GIOVANNI JACOPO, a cele brated adventurer, B. in Venice, 1725. He studied for the Church, but having been expelled for sufficient reasons from a seminary of priests, he travelled to Rome, Naples, Constantinople, and succe ively visited every European capital in various capacities. He was at once a schoolmaster, soldier, musician, chemist, alchemist, writer, and politician; and displayed, in these various callings, a great amount of talent, accompanied, nece arily, by equal chicanery. He was imprisoned at Vienna, and ultimately died there, 1803. His celebrated memoirs, Mémoires écrits par Lui - même (12 vols., Leip. 1826-1838), contain many interesting notices of the manners of his times, intermixed with details of his personal adventures. Casar'ca, n. ( Zool .) The Tadorna rutila , a species of duck, called also ruddy goose , found in Siberia. Ca's as. See LAS CASAS. Ca's as Gran'des. [Sp., great houses.] A town 01 Mexico, in Chihuahua, on the Casas Grandes, or San Miguel River, 35 m. S. of Llanos, remarkable for a num- ber of ruins, apparently relics of an aboriginal race. Pop . 4,000. Casbin, or KASBIN, a town of Persia, prov. of Irak, 90 m. from Teheran. It is very extensive, but a great part of it is now in ruins, owing to its frequent subjections to earthquakes. Pop . variously estimated from 30 to 50,000.