

42G Dll. T. A-SDEllSOX ON T>^T)T.VX ACAXTII\OE.^. 



charge, I hope soon to contribute some notes on the Asiatic 

 species not included in this enumeration. 



Until I have had an opportunity of examining the American 

 species, it would be premature to speak of the cliaracters and 

 affinities of the genera. Still I think that the limits of the 

 Asiatic genera and the Larger groups, such as suborders and 

 tribes, will not be materially altered when the entire order is 

 revised. 



The views I have adopted concerning the limits and relations 

 of the genera to each other, and the grouping of them into tribes 

 and suborders, are essentially different from those of jS"ees von 

 Esenbeck. His division of the order into two suborders by the 

 nature of the placental processes of the seed is exceedingly 

 unequal, as (after the separation of the very small abnormal 

 group, the suborder Anechmatacanthece) the true representatives 

 of the order, though styled the second suborder Uchmafacanfhe^e, 

 remain in reality as an order of great extent. In the arrange- 

 ment of the order which I proposed first in Mr. Thwaites s 

 enumeration of Ceylon plants, I removed the suborder Thun- 

 hergidecd from my suborders Muellidece and Acanthide^ by the 

 nature of the calyx, the aestivation of the parts of the corolla, 

 and the peculiar processes which support the seeds. The remani- 

 ing suborders, BuelUde<e and Acantltidece, almost coextensive "vvith 

 IS'ees's suborder EcJimafacanthece (he includes NeJsonia in Anech- 

 matacantlie(£) ^ are readily distinguished from each other by the 

 aestivation of the corolla, which is strongly contorted in Bnel- 

 lidciB and imbricated in Acant}iide(s, 



In BiiellidecG J have established the tribes on characters taken 

 principally from the calyx and the form of the seed ; in Acan- 

 tlddecd I have found that the tribes are easily distinguishea 

 by the form of the corolla, the number of the stamens, and the 

 condition of the anthers. The groups of genera which I l^^-ve 

 called subtribes are based on characters found in the parts of the 

 floAver, or in the form of the capsule, and the number of the 

 seeds, as these happen to vary in the tribes to which these lo^^'^^ 

 groups belong. The synonyms I have quoted in many parts 

 of this enumeration, and the short generic characters given in the 

 Conspectus Generum, show how greatly iS'ees von Esenbecks 

 genera have been altered, and in many cases suppressed. -1^ 

 this enumeration, and also in that of the African species, I h^^® 

 restored Linmcus's two important genera Muellia and Justici j 

 both of which had been virtually destroyed by Nees; for altaoug 





