2 LINDLEY ON FLOERKEA OF WILLDENOW. 
stamina omnia subzqualia, patentia; discus fere oblitera- 
tus; stylus staminibus æqualis; cæteræ partes immutatze. 
Fructus calyz persistens, laciniis patentissimis, paulo ampli- 
ficatis; achenia 2-3, oblonga, tuberculata; pericarpium 
coriaceum ; semina cavitatem totam replentia; embryo 
oblongus, exalbuminosus, cofyledonibus plano-convexis, 
radicula intra bases cotyledonum inclusa, hilo proxima, 
plumula conica, conspicua. 
Such being the essential structure of this plant, while it is 
obvious that it cannot be referred to any of the Natural Orders 
in which it has actually been placed, or to which it has been 
approximated, it is equally certain that it is by no means easy 
to say to what it really belongs. 
In habit, it possesses so few characteristic marks, that one 
can scarcely draw any inference from it. Ranunculacee are 
perhaps those, certain species of which, it most resembles, and 
its apocarpous fruit would be in a slight degree corroborative 
of such an association; but the structure of the calyx, the 
perigynous disk, and the absence of albumen, will not permit 
us to place it even in their neighbourhood. It may also be 
compared with Geraniacec in some points, such as the deep 
lobes of the ovarium, with monospermous cells, and the want 
of albumen; but it is destitute of all tendency to a monadelphous 
state of the stamens, it has nothing like a gynophore with a 
central axis, and its seeds are altogether different, not to 
speak of its perigynous disk. Many other Orders might also be 
selected, with which points of agreement might be established. 
But it seems to me that Sanguisorbee are the plants among 
which, or in the neighbourhood of which, Floerkea must take 
its place. They agree, to a certain extent, in habit: that is, 
many Sanguisorbec are inconspicuous, procumbent, herbaceous 
plants, with divided leaves; both have definite stamens arising 
from : a perigynous disk; if Floerkea has its styles united almost 
to the apex, Sanguisorbee have unilocular monospermous car- 
. pella, with the styles proceeding occasionally from their base, 
|o that they only differ in an adhesion of the styles: in San- 
guisorbee we have seeds always — at the point where 
v Sax Erates o fies, Yo xe 163, 
