Belongs to the greenhouse, where it flowers in May- 



The following critical view of the order is borrowed 

 from Mr. Brown. 



'< Stylidece. 'Riia order, consisting; of Stylidium, Levenhookia, and 

 FoRSTEKA, I have formerly separated from Campanulacew, on account of 

 its reduced number of stamina, and the remarkable and intimate cohesion of 

 their filaments with the style, through the whole length of botti organs. It 

 differs also both from CampanulacecB and Qoodenovus in the imbricate sesti^ 

 vation of the corolla, and where its segments are unequal in the nature of the 

 irrcgularify. In the relation which the parts of it3 flower have to the axis of 

 the inflorescence, and in the parallel septum of its capsule, it agrees vnth 

 GoodenovitE and differs from Lobelia» which^ however, in some other 

 respects it more nearly resembles." 



" Very different descriptions of the stamens and pistil in this tribei and 

 especially of the latter, have been given by several Irench botanists. Ac- 

 cording to Kichard the lateral appendices of the labellum in Stylidiuh are 

 the real stigmata, the style being consequently considered as cohering with the 

 tube of the corolla, and the column as consisting of stamina only. This view 

 of the structure demands particular notice> not only from the respect to which 

 its author is Iiimself entitled^ but because it has also been adopted by Jussieu> 

 whose arguments in support of itj, aact against the common opinion, may be 

 reduced to three. 1^ Were the common opinion admitted, tlie difficulty of 

 conceiving so wide a difference in what he terms insertion of Stamina^ in two 

 orders so nearly related as Campanutacece and Stylidem obviously are : 2dly. 

 The alleged non-existence of the stigma^ which preceding authors had 

 described as terminating the column: and lastly the manifest existence of 

 another part, which, both from its appearance and supposed origin^ is con- 

 sidered as capable of performing the function of that organ.'^ 



" In oppoiiition to these arguments it may be observed, that the real origin 

 of the Stamina is in both orders the same, the apparent difference arising 

 simply from their accretion to the style in StylidetB, a tendency to which 

 may be said to exist in LoBELlA. The inability to detect the Stigma ter- 

 minating the column in Stylidium must have arisen from the imperfection of 

 the specimens examined, for in the recent state, in which this organ is even 

 more obvious than in Goodenauue at the time of bursting of the antberse> 

 it could not have escaped bo accurate an observer as Richard ; and were it 

 even less manifest in Stylidium, its existence would be sufficiently con- 

 firmed from the strict analogy of that genus with Levenhookia, whose 

 stigma, also terminating the column, consists of two long capillary laciniae, 

 which are in no stage concealed by the antfaerte.*^ 



*' With respect to the part considered as Stigma by Richard, I have for- 

 merly observed that it is obsolete in some species of Stylidium, and en- 

 tirely wanting in others, and there is certainly ne trace of any thing analogous 

 to it in FopsTERA-'^ 



" The greater part of the Australian StyHde<B exist at the western extre- 

 mity of the principal parallel, several species are found at the Eastern extre- 

 mity of the same parallel, and a few others occur both within the tropic and in 

 Van Piemen's Island. Beyond Terra Australis vciy few plants of this order 

 have been observed; two speoes of StylidiuM, very similar to certain in- 

 tratropical species of New Holland, were found in Ceylcm and Malacca by 

 Kctnig ; and of the only two known species of Fokstera, one is a native of 

 New Zealand, the other of Tierra del Fuego, and the opposite coast of Pata- 

 gonia." Brown gen. rrm. in append, to FHnd> twy. 2. 661. 



