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XIII. Review of the Order of Hydrophyllez. By GEORGE BENTHAM, 
Esq., F.L.S. 
Read June 17th, 1834. 
ON the occasion of publishing some new ornamental species of Nemophila 
and Phacelia, received by the Horticultural Society from Mr. Douglas, the 
collector whom they had sent out to the North-west Coast of America, I have 
been led to examine the whole of the species of the small tribe to which they 
belong, contained in my own and the Horticultural Society's herbaria. The 
result having induced me to entertain some doubts as to the importance of 
some of the characters upon which the generic distinctions have been esta- 
blished, I have committed my observations to paper, together with a short 
review of the whole of the species of which the order is now composed, in 
the hope that they might not prove unacceptable to the Linnean Society. 
This group of plants was first indicated as a natural order by Mr. Brown 
in his Prodromus Flore Nove Hollandie, where, with his usual acumen and 
conciseness, he observes (p. 492.), * Distincti (a Borragineis) ordinis initia con- 
stituunt genera capsularia Hydrophyllum, Phacelia, et Ellisia, ob albumen 
copiosum cartilagineum, et folia composita vel alte lobata.” To this group 
Mr. Brown afterwards gave the name of Hydrophyllece, and added the Nemo- 
phila of Barton (Bot. Mag. 50. t. 2373.), and a new genus under the name of | 
Eutoca (App. to Franklin's Voyage). These five genera, together with one I 
now propose to name Emmenanthe, contain the whole of the thirty-two species 
now known; or if it should appear, upon further observation, that Nemophila 
should be considered as a section of Ellisia, and Eutoca be joined to Phacelia, 
the whole tribe would be reduced to four natural and well-defined genera. 
All these plants agree in those essential characters which, as stated by 
Mr. Brown, separate them from their nearest allies, the Borraginec, that is to 
say, in their capsular fruit and copious albumen; and the structure of the 
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