SCROPHULARIACEAE, in botany, a family of seed plants belonging to the sympetalous section of Dicotyledons and a mem ber of the series Tubiflorae. It is a cosmopolitan order containing about 200 genera with about 2,60o species ; the majority occur in temperate regions, the numbers diminishing rapidly towards the tropics and colder regions. About 30% of the species are annual herbs, such as eyebright (Euphrasia officinalis), cow-wheat (Me lampyrum), and species of Veronica; more than 6o% are biennial or generally perennial herbs and undershrubs, such as species of Veronica, mullein (Verbascum), foxglove (Digitalis purpurea), etc., while shrubs and trees are rare; Paulownia, a native of the mountains of Japan, a tree with large leaves and handsome panicles of violet flowers, is grown in European gardens.
The stem is sometimes prostrate and creeping, as in ivy-leaved toad-flax (Linaria Cymbalaria) and some of the native British Veronicas, but generally erect as in foxglove, figwort, mullein, etc.; a few are climbers as Rhodochiton and Maurandia. The South African genera Hyobanche and Harveya are parasites almost de void of chlorophyll with scale-like leaves ; and many genera are semiparasitic, having green leaves, but attaching themselves by root-suckers to roots of grass, etc., from which they derive part of their nourishment ; such are Euphrasia, Rhinanthus, Pedicularis, etc. A few genera are aquatic, e.g., Ambulia (Old World Tropics), and have much divided submerged leaves and entire aerial leaves. The flowers are solitary in the leaf-axils, as in Mimulus, species of Linaria, etc., or form spikes or racemes which are terminal as in foxglove, species of Veronica, etc., or axillary, as in Veronica (Chamaedrys section). The flowers are hermaphrodite, hypogyn ous and zygomorphic in the median plane, being often more or less two-lipped, and having five sepals joined below and persist ing in the fruiting stage, five petals uniting to form a corolla of various shape, generally four stamens, the fifth (posterior) being suppressed or represented by a rudiment, while the anterior pair are longer than the posterior, and two generally equal carpels in the median plane forming a two-xelled ovary containing numer ous anatropous ovules on a thick axile placenta, and bearing a simple or bilobed style.
When a terminal flower is present it becomes regular as in toad flax, where radial symmetry is produced by development of a spur to each petal—such flowers are termed peloric ; all the flowers in a spike are sometimes peloric. In Euphrasia and many species of Veronica the posterior sepal is suppressed. The form of the corolla shows great variety, depending on the length and breadth of the tube—which in Veronica is almost obsolete, while in foxglove it is large and almost bell-shaped—and the development of the limbs, which are spreading in Veronica, small and almost erect in figwort, or form a pair of closed lips as in Linaria and Antirrhinum.
In V erbascum the five segments are almost equal, forming a nearly regular corolla ; the approach to regularity in the corolla in Verbascum is associated with the presence of five fertile stamens, but the three posterior are generally larger than the two anterior. In Veronica, Calceolaria and other genera only two stamens are present. Honey is secreted by a disk surrounding the base of the ovary or by special nectaries below it. Verbascum and Veronica with a short-tubed corolla represent an open type of flower with more exposed nectar; in foxglove the honey is at the base of the long tube, and a bee crawling to reach it will rub with its back the anthers or stigmas which are placed on the upper side of the bell. The closed flowers of Linaria and Antirrhinum can be visited only by insects strong enough to separate the lips.
The fruit is generally a capsule surrounded at the base, or some times as in yellow-rattle (Rhinanthus) enveloped in the persistent calyx; it opens by two or four valves, or, as in Antirrhinum, by pores. Occasionally it is a berry. In Linaria Cymbalaria the fruit becomes buried by the stalks bending downwards when ripe.
The family is divided into tribes by characters derived from the number of fertile stamens present and the form of the corolla. It is well represented in Britain by 13 genera, viz., Verbascum (mul lein), Linaria (toad-flax), Antirrhinum (snapdragon), Scrophularia (figwort), Limosella, Sibthorpia, Digitalis (foxglove), Veronica (speedwell), Bartsia, Euphrasia (eyebright), Rhinanthus (yellow rattle), Pedicularis (louse-wort) and Melampyrum (cow-wheat). The best known representatives in North America are Verbas cum (mullein), Pentstemon (beard-tongue), Mimulus (monkey flower), Veronica (speedwell), Gerardia, Castilleja (painted cup), and Pedicularis (louse-wort). Common in cultivation are Euro pean species of Antirrhinum (snapdragon), Digitalis (foxglove), and Linaria (toad-flax). Several genera are well known in gardens; such are Calceolaria, Collinsia, Pentstemon and Mimulus (musk).
the name applied to species of an Australian genus of birds and especially to Atrichornis clamosa. This bird is brown above, each feather barred with a darker shade ; the throat and belly are reddish-white and there is a black patch on the throat ; the flanks are brown. It inhabits the thickest "scrub" and the males are noisy and imitative. A second species, A. rufescens, from New South Wales, is brown all over. They form the family Atrichornithidae of the perching birds (Passeres).