12 MR. G. BENTHAM’S SYNOPSIS OF DALBERGIE.E, 
or nearly so, with a great tendency to a eorky thickening. The 
latter group has, however, been so long established as a substan- 
tive genus, and is so well known under that name, that it may be 
more convenient so to retain it, although artificial. 
There are, however, several small genera proposed at different 
times, which I have been obliged to reduce to Dalbergia, although 
I may have adopted them in my Vienna memoir, not having then 
perfect specimens in flower and fruit of the true Asiatic Dalbergias 
for comparison. Triptolemea, Mart., with its compact cymes of 
minute flowers, looked distinct enough from D. lanceolaria, but is 
certainly inseparable from D. rimosa. Miscolobiwm, Vog., with 
its smooth unveined pod, has its counterpart in several of the 
African and Asiatic Sissoas and Dalbergarias, among which the 
passage into the forms exemplified in the American D. variabilis 
and the Asiatic D. rimosa is very gradual. Amerimnum, Sw., has 
the inflorescence and flowers of D. nigra and others among Ame- 
rican species, or of D. latifolia and its allies among Asiatic ones ; 
and the pod, although sometimes rather more thickened, is often 
quite as thin as in the majority of Dalbergias, and similarly reti- 
culated over the seeds. Podospermum, Hochst., and Endospermum, 
Blume, are both common forms among true Dalbergias. 
In the distribution of the numerous species of the genus into 
groups I have had considerable difficulty, for, notwithstanding the 
great similarity in the modifications observable in the American 
species and in the corresponding Asiatic ones, I have found cha- 
racters apparently constant in one set, much less so in the others ; 
and this will account for some diversity in the principles on which 
I have established my sections in the several successive sketches 
I have given of the genus (in the ‘ Wiener Annalen, in the ‘ Plante 
Junghuhnians,' and in Martius’ ‘ Flora") according as I have been 
working up the American or the Asiatic species. Taking now a 
general view of the whole genus, after the artificial separation of 
one American and two Asiatic Selenolobia by their peculiar fruit, 
I can find no character among the remaining sixty odd species, 
which shall mark out definite sections equally applicable to those 
of the new and of the old world. I have, therefore, following the 
rule laid down by De Candolle for similar occasions, distributed 
them into series only, distinguished by no essential character, and 
connected with each other by intermediate links, either American, 
Asiatic, or African; but which may yet serve as a help to specific 
determination, and as a guide to the study of the various modifica- 
tions presented to us without departing from the generie type. 
