* 
Mr. Brown, on the Proteacee of Jussieu. 17 
was induced to adopt it more from the consideration of the 
close analogy these plants have with the manifestly pentandrous 
Apocinee, than from regarding them as strictly referable .to this 
class ; for, in his natural generic characters of Asclepiasand Pergu- 
laria, he very clearly describes both these genera as gynandrous. 
Jussieu has entered more fully into the subject, but seems also 
to have been chiefly guided by this analogy and the observations 
of others; as he concludes by expressing his doubts, respecting 
both the origin and use of the parts. 
Richard, whose description of these organs I find in Persoon's 
Synopsis, has indeed come nearer to the solution of the question; 
his account, however, of the origin of the lateral processes here- 
after mentioned, proves that this description was not altogether 
formed on actual observation. 
Jacquin, the first botanist that submitted these plants to mi- 
nute examination, and whose figures well illustrate most. points 
of their structure, has adopted a very different opinion, referring 
them to Gynandria, in which he is followed by Koelreuter, 
Rottboell and Cavanilles, all of whom likwise agree with him in 
cousidering them as decandrous; while Dr. Smith, in his late. 
valuable Introduction to Botany, who conceives that “ no: plants 
can be more truly. gynandrous," regards them as having only five 
anther. And lastly Desfontaines supposes the five glands of 
the stigma to be the true anther, considering the attached 
masses of pollen as mere appendages to these. 
_ All the authors who thus refer them to Gynandria seem quite 
confident in the justness of their views; and yet the inspection 
of a single flower bud overturns, as it appears to me, with irre- 
sistible evidence, the conclusion t ey had formed from premises 
apparently so;satisfactorys60i-0s uoo) cues oos 
— My attention, while in New Holland, having been much en- 
MOL D gaged 
