us, adorn their temples on festival days with the leaves of 
the Crcas circinalis, because they do not soon fade ; and 
on this account the Portuguese call them Palma de’ Igreria 
or Armatoria das Igrerias. At Rouen, on Palm Sunday, I 
have seen the leaves of the same plant carried in procession, 
and which had been procured from the Botanic Garden there. 
The natural family to which this plant should belong 
has engaged the attention of various Botanists ; it has even 
been questioned in which of the three great classes of 
the vegetable kingdom, the Monocotyledones, the Dicoty- 
ledones, or the Acotyledones, it should be placed. Linnaus 
ranked it among the Palms, but at the same time, justly 
observed “‘Foliatio circinalis more Filicum peragitur ;” Jus- 
seu and Venrenart, along with the Ferns; Jacguin, in an 
artificial system, considered it to belong to the Class Diacza, 
and Order Potyanpria; Smits looked upon it, along with 
Zamia, as constituting an intermediate Order between 
the Patmz and the Fruices. In Persoon’s Synopsis, the 
Natural Order Cycapez is established; and the place of 
it suggested, corresponding with the ideas just mentioned 
of Sir James Smiru. Our learned countryman, Mr. Brown, 
in his inestimable Prodromus Flore Nove Hollandiz, bas 
placed the Order the last of the Monocotyledones, immedi- 
ately before the Dicotyledones; calling the embryo, indeed, 
pseudo-dicotyledoneus. 'The true structure of this E 
is now completely ascertained by the labours of Du Pert 
Tuovars, and the late admirable Ricuarn; and this latter 
has determined it to have the closest affinity with the 
Dicotyledonous plants; and amongst them, with the Cont- 
FERZ, near which he consequently places the Order. Here, 
however, it must be acknowledged that the natural habit 
and aspect of the vegetation, are sacrificed to minute 
differences in the fructification. In the structure of the 
stem, in the mode of growth, in the situation and appear- 
ance of the leaves, the Cycas has the closest affinity with 
the Palms, and is in these particulars as far removed as 
can be from the Pines. 
On the peculiar structure of the flowers, especially the 
female ones, of Cycas, Ricuarp, has written fully in the 
Mémoires sur les Coniféres et les Cycadées ; and Mr. Brown, 
in the Botanical Appendix to the “ Narrative of a Survey of 
the Coast of Australia,” p. 554. To them I must refer my 
_ readers for valuable information on that head. Those dis- 
quisitions are too long to be here introduced, and too 1m- 
portant 
