POUZOLZIA. 
Tre genus Pouzolzia was established by Gaudi- 
chaud for the reception of some plants previously 
referred by Linnzus and others to Parietaria, and by 
Roxburgh and other Indian Botanists to Urtica. 
He separated it from the former of these genera, on 
account of the speeies he knew having a linear not 
capitato-villous stigma, and winged, not simply ovate, 
ribbed fruit. I here use the term fruit to designate 
the nut with its enclosing persistent ealyx or perianth. 
His words are, * Fem. calyx fructifer profunde suleato- 
angulatus vel eomplanato-bialatus, inferne ad utrum- 
que latus cristatus, gibbus vel nudus, limbo parvo 
bilobo (lobis 2 alternis abortientibus?). Stigma ses- 
sile, elongatum, ad unum latus villosum." His char- 
acter of Parietaria being, “ Fem. calyx tubulosus 4- 
lobus. Stylus filiformis, Stigma capitato-villosum." 
These distinctions have not been deemed of suffi- 
cient weight by either Endlicher or Meisner to keep 
the two genera distinet, the former having altogether 
rejeeted the new genus, while the latter has merely 
given its essential character, retaining it as a sub- 
genus of Parietaria. Mr. Bennett (Pl. Javan. rar.), 
however, takes a different view and adopts the genus. 
After stating that Gaudichaud had sub-divided the 
Linnean genus Parietaria into seven distinct groups, 
founded chiefly on modifications of the fructiferous 
calyx, he continues, “among these groups, that to 
which he has applied the name Pouzolzia is particu- 
larly well marked by the distinct habit of most of 
the species composing it, and by the geographical 
distribution, as well as by the peculiar characters of 
. their früctification. These characters consist in the 
. female perianth enlarging in size and changing in 
form as the fruit advances to maturity, and finally con- 
stituting, at the completion of that period, an undivided 
euvelope, closely applied to the surface of the seed, 
and furnished with a series of projecting ribs (most 
commonly double in number to that of the parts form- 
ing the male perianth), with the frequent development 
(sometimes additional, sometimes at the expense of 
the ribs) of two broad wing-like expansions, bearing a 
strong external resemblance to the wings of the seed- 
vessel of Oxyria. The presence or absence of these 
wings in the different species appears to afford so 
obvious a character in the ripe state of the fruit, that 
I should have been tempted to carry still further the 
sub-division of the Linnean group and to regard the 
Pouzolzia of M. Gaudichaud as resolvable into two 
genera, were it not that in the earlier stage, there 
exist no sufficient means of distinction, and that even 
in the ripe state and in those species which are most 
obviously furnished with wings, those organs appear 
occasionally to remain undeveloped in some few of 
the flowers, although the great majority continue to 
produce them. It will therefore, perhaps, be more 
advisable to regard the distinction as only of sec- 
tional importance." gs 
From this extract we learn that the stability of 
the genus rests even more on the well marked habit 
of most of the species and their geographical distribu- 
tion than on the peculiar characters of their fructifi- 
cation whieh is so inconstant as not to admit of the 
winged division being separated from the wingless ; or 
in other words that Pouzolzias are tropical Parietarius 
with filiform stigmas, thereby confirming the views 
of Endlicher and Meisner. That such is really the 
case will, Í think, be amply proved in the course of 
this monograph by the occurrence of species, the 
fruit of which is scarcely ribbed, others in which it 
is traversed with prominent ridges and deep fur- 
rows; many in which both ribbed and winged seed 
occur in the same faseicles, some with three wings 
and several with four amply develo and lastly 
we have one with cymose male inflorescence, and 
wingless seed, nearly as in Parietaria officinalis. 
