Mr. Brown, on the Proteacee of Jussieu. 27 
doubted importance in determining genera, and even in the pri- 
mary division of the order it appears to be of nearly equal con- 
sequence with the fruit itself; for, in dividing the order into two 
sections from the structure of the ovarium, it will be found that 
while all the single-seeded genera have each flower subtended by 
a proper bractea, or more rarel y are without one, those with two 
or more seeds have, with very few exceptions, the flowers of their 
spikes or clusters disposed in pairs, each pair being furnished 
with only one bractea common to both flowers: it may also be 
observed that all the American and two thirds of the N ew 
Holland species have this mode of inflorescence, while only one 
instance of it occurs in Africa. | 1 me dh 
The single envelope of the stamina and pistillum in Proteacex 
I have, with Jussieu, denominated CALYX, chiefly because the 
stamina, of equal number with its laciniz, are constautly op- 
posite to them, and from the close analogy subsisting between 
this family and that of Thymelee, in which I believe the 
greater number of botanists will allow that this envelope is really 
calyx: and as this latter argument may be considered as the 
stronger, I shall endeavour to establish the identity of this or- 
gan in these two families. In several of the Thymelec, especially 
in Pimelea, the lower part of the tube of the calyx is, as it were, 
jointed with the upper; after the falling off of which, it remains 
surrounding the fruit: this is also the case in several genera of 
Proteacez, as in Adenanthos of Labillardiere, in Isopogon, in Gre- 
villea Chrysodendron, and still more remarkably in Franklandia, 
in which the persistent tube becomes indurated and even nearly 
woody, a change surely not likely to take place in a genuine 
corolla. But though I have thus adopted the language of Jussieu, 
I am decidedly of opinion that, in all families having asingle en- — 
A £9 ee = velope, 
