156 Rhodora [SEPTEMBER 
consideration. In this, under Class III Perigyna, Order VII Narcissi 
of his Monocotyledons, he placed the genus Hypoxis. 
Robert Brown in his Prodromus (1810) formed the family Amarylli- 
deae and under the heading “Genera inter Asphodeleas et Amarylli- 
deas media" placed the genera Hypoxis, Curculigo Gaertner and 
Campynema Labillardiére. Later in his General Remarks om the 
Botany of Australia (1814), he said, “it is better to consider Curculigo 
and Hypoxis as forming a separate family." This family he proposed 
to call the Hypoxideae, characterized by “Perianthium superum 
limbo sexpartito, regulari, aestivatione imbricata. Stamina sex, 
imis lacinis inserta. Ovarium 3-loc. loculis polyspermis. Capsula 
evalvis, nunc baccata, polysperma. Semina umbilico laterali rostelli- 
formi: testa atra crustacea. Embryo in axi albuminis carnosi: radicula 
vaga." 
Curculigo was described by Gaertner in 1788 with the species C. 
orchioides, a plant which had previously been considered an orchid. 
Jussieu in 1789 made no mention of this new genus but later Robert 
Brown classed it with Hypoxis as above stated. 
Campynema was described by Labillardiére (1804) as a new genus 
based upon a plant from Tasmania which he called C. linearis. 
Since it has a leafy stem and its seeds are very different from those 
of Hypoxis it seems unwise to place these two genera together. 
John Lindley in his Introduction to a Natural System of Botany 
(1831) placed Curculigo and Hypoxis under the order Hypowideae. 
Later in his Natural System of Botany (1836) he placed the Hypoxideae 
as a family under the order Amaryllidaceae and he said, “I give up 
the possibility of characterizing Hypoxideae as a distinct Order, for 
their occasionally rostellate seeds appear of no value as an ordinal 
distinction." All of the American species of Hyzoxis and Curculigo 
have rostellate seeds and Baker says the Old World species of both 
likewise have them. So by including plants without rostellate seeds 
Lindley seems to have brought together some unrelated genera when 
he placed Curculigo including Molineria Colla, Hypoxis including 
Fabrica Thunberg and “Caelanthus Schlectendal” (originally pub- 
lished Coelanthus Willd.) under the family Hypoxideae. 
Colla (1825) described Molineria, with M. plicata as type, and 
observed that it had been considered a Curculigo but that it differed 
from the latter in several respects. He listed the differences and also 
gave a figure of his plant. From his plate and from specimens of 
