PORTULACEZE AND THEIR ALLIES GL 
universally recognized ordinal distinctions, we leave them for the 
present as elaborately worked up in the ‘Prodromus, entering only 
our provisional protest against the useless change in name from 
Chenopodiaceæ to Salsolaceæ, against the separation of Basel- 
laceæ as an order, against the importance attached to the erect or 
horizontal seeds, and against much superfluous splitting both of 
genera and of species upon inconstant characters. 
The four orders, either retained among Thalamifloræ or now first 
transferred to Monochlamydæ, call however for some observa- 
tions as to the limits of genera which I shall now severally enu- 
merate. 
I. CARYOPHYLLEZ. 
The limits of most of the large genera of this order have always 
been very artificial, and were made to rest by Linneus chiefly on 
the number of parts of the flower. As these have been shown to 
be in some cases very variable, and often quite unconnected with 
habit or other characters, A. Braun, Fenzl, and others have re- 
sorted to the embryo, the venation of the calyx,the dehiscence of the 
capsule, &c.; and the latter character has been especially relied upon 
by Fenzl, who has alone investigated specifically the whole order, 
and worked out a large portion of it with the greatest accuracy of 
detail. He has not, indeed, been always successful in the new 
combinations he has formed to replace the old Linnean genera; 
his distinction between Arenaria and Alsine, for instance, is not 
à natural one ; but, on the other hand, he has much improved the 
circumscription of some genera, such as Gypsophila, Cerastium, 
&c., and contributed very largely to our accurate knowledge of 
the various forms assumed by the numerous species, races, and 
varieties of the order. In determining the limits to be assigned 
to our genera, we have always found we could place implicit reli- 
ance on the characters assigned by him to the species he examined, 
as well as on those given by A. Braun, J. Gay, and M. Willkomm, 
who have specially studied portions of the order. 
Of the three above-mentioned tribes of Caryophyllez, the first, 
SILENE, has been universally recognized as distinctly marked out 
by the gamosepalous calyx, and has even been raised by many 
modern botanists to the rank of an independent order. We con- 
tinue it as a tribe only, and we still think that the large genera 
of the older botanists, with some slight modifications founded on 
the eapsule, the embryo, or on the venation of the calyx, are as 
