MR. F. N. WILLIAMS ON THE GENUS SILENE. 13 
The sections into which Adolph Otth proposed to group the 
species in the first volume of De Candolle’s ‘ Prodromus’ are 
so unnatural, and characterized by such indefinite characters, 
that it would be impossible to attempt a revision of the genus 
on the principles followed by that botanist. Others followed 
Otth’s classification, with unimportant alterations, in subse- 
quent works, in which the plants of the order Caryophyllacez 
were systematically or geographically dealt with, so that the 
first classification of species of Silene which can properly claim 
any attention from a scientific point of view dates from 
Godron’s* masterly essay on the forms of inflorescence in 
this genus. 
Godron certainly attaches no importance to the existence 
of septa at the base in the ripe capsule or to their absence, 
and includes, therefore, all species belonging to Melandrywm 
subg. Elisanthe, as well as the genus Heliosperma (to which 
he falsely ascribes capsular dissepiments), in Silene; and this 
same view of the limits of the genus is taken by Bentham and 
Hooker.t+ 
The grouping of the genera of the suborder Sileninesw on 
the principle first proposed by Alexander Braun has already 
been alluded to, and Rohrbach has adopted in the main 
Godron’s primary character of the disposition and mode of 
inflorescence, except in reference to the group Lychnioides, 
which he has relegated to a subordinate and secondary position, 
but which, however, in this revision disappears altogether, 
as the species are placed in the genus Hudianthe. The genus 
Silene, as understood and circumscribed by Braun, included 
a large number of species which formed a very natural group 
sufficiently marked off from other genera, as defined at that 
time, but very difficult to form into subsidiary groups, on 
account of the absence of well-defined primary and secondary 
characters within the limits of the genus which might be 
utilized for the purpose. In the first place, however, he fixes 
on the character of the mode of overlapping of the petals in 
prefloration as the basis of division into two subgenera, before 
Proceeding to group the species into sections. Boissier points 
out that Alexander Braun first drew attention to this character 
* Observ. crit. sur Vinflor. du genre Silene (1847). 
t Genera Plantarum, i, p- 147: “Ovarium uniloculare vel ima basi 
septatum multiovulatum ; styli vulgo 3. Capsula apice in dentes vel valvas 
breves 6 rarius 3 dehiscens.” 
