Mr. W. King on certain Genera of the Class Palliobranchiata. 83 



may occur in all the species, and may be as general a character 

 of the order as the beautiful markings in the cuticle of the petals 

 are well known to be. 



Other orders have been examined which are said to have a near 

 affinity with Geraniacea, but none of the plants examined, be- 

 longing to the orders Balsaminacece, Tropaolaceae, Oxalidacece or 

 Linacece, manifest anything like the appearances described — in fact 

 no clustered crystals have been met with ; but in taking an order 

 said to be somewhat more remote, Malvaceae, I find in all the 

 examples that I have examined of British and foreign plants, 

 precisely a similar disposition and number of crystals. 



If the leaves constituting the involucrum of Althtea, Malva and 

 Pelargonium be carefully examined, a few crystals will occasionally 

 be found, but altogether not in the slightest to be compared with 

 the number or disposition of those in the sepals. 



If constitutional peculiarities, besides structure, have any in- 

 fluence with systematists, then Malvaceae ought probably to be 

 placed somewhat nearer Geraniacea j and when we consider the 

 monadelphous condition of the stamens of both orders and their 

 tendency in Monsonia to be indefinite, and the carpels of some 

 plants of Malvaceae to have but one seed, exalbuminous, and to 

 be disunited, and the parts of the flower of the same numbers, 

 there appears to be some reason, as far as the structure of the 

 reproductive organs is concerned, to bring the position of these 

 orders in closer relation. 



The sepals of most plants are favourable organs for meeting 

 with crystalline bodies, either of the solitary, acicular or clustered 

 varieties. The sepals of Prunella vulgaris and Dianthus caryo- 

 phyllus exhibit well the solitary cubic crystal beneath the cuticular 

 cells ; the Fuchsias contain a great quantity of the acicular kind, 

 and the sepals of the Strawberry exhibit the clustered variety as 

 seen in the Geraniacea. Thus it appears that there is something 

 peculiar to the sepals of certain plants that disposes the contents 

 of their cells to form crystals which does not belong to the neigh- 

 bouring organs. 



50 Wellclose Square, July 4, 1846. 



XL — Remarks on certain Genera belonging to the Class Pallio- 

 branchiata. By William King, Curator of the Museum of 

 the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham and 

 Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 



[Continued from p. 42.] 



Pentamerus. 



The beak of Pentamerus is furnished with an aperture of the 



form of a triangle, the base of which corresponds to the hinge 



