260 MR. G. BENTHAM ON THE GENERA SWEETIA AND GLYCINE. 
proves to be quite that of Leptolobium, it follows that the whole 
must be united under one genus. Of the three names, Sprengel’s 
has by many years the priority : the only objections to its adoption 
would be, first, that, owing to misdescription, it was not recog- 
nizable ; and secondly, that a Sweetia was published by DeCandolle 
about the same time in the second volume of the ‘ Prodromus.’ To 
the first objection it may be replied that, on the first occasion that 
the plant was met with and described, it was recognized by Vogel 
by means of authentic specimens ; and to the second, that DeCan- 
dolle's Sweetia has been suppressed, having been ascertained to 
be no other than the common Galactia tenuiflora, W. & Arn. We 
are thus compelled to lay aside both Schott’s and Vogel’s names, 
and adopt Sprengel's dedication of the genus to our late laborious 
hortieultural illustrator. 
The genus, notwithstanding the anomalies which he did not fail 
to perceive, was placed by Vogel in Cxsalpiniex ; and in the rough 
sketch I made in 1840 (Hook. Journ. Bot. ii. p. 72) of an arrange- 
ment of that suborder I left it there, without having occasion to 
examine it in detail It was thus omitted in the monograph of Bra- 
zilian Papilionacez which I published in Martius's * Flora Brasili- 
ensis, But having now, in working up the order for our ‘ Genera 
Plantarum, dissected several flowers of all the species we possess, 
I find that there is no doubt of its much closer affinity with the - 
tribe Sophorez of Papilionacew. The estivation of the petals, the 
main point of distinction between the two suborders, is essentially 
papilionaceous—the upper petal (vexillum) outside, then the two 
lateral ones, and the two lower inside: the exceptions, which I had 
formerly thought frequent in the genus, I find to be very rare, 
and only amount to this, that the vexillum is occasionally over- 
lapped on one side by one of the wings ; the two lowest or carinal 
petals I always find innermost. The other important character, 
the embryo, has in some species the straight radicle of Cæsalpinieæ, 
but in others it is curved or inflexed as in Papilionacex, a diver- 
sity which is not unfrequent in Sophoree—Sophora itself, for 
instance, having both straight and curved embryos, whilst the 
incurved radicle has as yet never been observed in true Cesal- 
piniex*. In other characters the habit resembles that of Sclero- 
lobiwn and other Cæsalpinieæ, but is not unlike that of Diplo- 
tropis and others in Sophorex ; the calyx, as in Sophoree, has the 
sepals united in a tube above the disk, which, although occasional, 
is very rare in Cesalpiniex ; and the nearly regular corolla, which 
- * Swartziew, which have an incurved radicle, must be removed to Papilio- 
naces, = 
