MR. P.ENTHAM ON LOGANIACEiE. 113 



Edouard Bureau, entitled " De la Famille des Loganiacees et des 

 plantes qu'elle fournit a la medecine, These pour le Doctorat en 

 medecine." Paris, 1856, 4to, 150 pp. The medical properties of 

 the drugs derived from the family are treated at great length, but 

 there is also considerable space devoted to the systematic questions 

 which are the subject of my own paper. M. Bureau has not had 

 the same advantages as myself in the examination of so large a 

 proportion of specimens, nor does he appear to have had the 

 opportunity of consulting some of the more modern works except- 

 ing through Walpers's extracts, such, for instance, as Blume's 

 " Museum Botanicum Lugduno-Batavum," but he has availed him- 

 self to the utmost of the materials he has had access to, and his 

 analysis and descriptions are very careful and exact. He inclines 

 to reject a considerable number of genera, referring them to their 

 nearest allied families ; that is, Mitreola, Mitrasacme, and Poly- 

 premum to Buliacece ; GeUemium to Apocynece ; Fagrcea, Potalia, 

 and Antliocleista to Gfentianece ; Nuocia and its allies to Scrophu- 

 larinece. For the reasons above given, I cannot concur in this 

 course, unless indeed the whole order be broken up, and the two 

 genera which M. Bureau considers as essentially typical, Logania 

 and Geniostotna, be also rejected, the one to Scrophularinece, the 

 other to Apocynece. 



M. Bureau's careful observations of the details of structure of 

 such genera as he had specimens of to dissect, suggest a few addi- 

 tional notes which I shall place in the order above adopted. 



MlTEEOLA, MlTEASACME, and POLYPBEMTJM. 



In dissecting the flowers at a very early stage, M, Bureau finds 

 a very perceptible adherence of the ovary to the tube of the calyx, 

 amounting in Polypremum to a fifth or nearly a fourth of the total 

 height of the young ovary, and in Mitreola to nearly one-half in a 

 very young state, although gradually disappearing as the ovary 

 grows, and imperceptible when the capsule is ripe. This adherence, 

 which some might be disposed to consider as the broad base of 

 the ovary, always large in proportion to its height at an early 

 stage, is, without doubt, indicative of a close affinity to Buliacece, 

 an affinity which must suggest itself to any one who studies the 

 Loganiacees ; but appears to me insufficient to establish identity, 

 as it is no more than what is observable in numerous Scrophula- 

 rinece — in none more so than in Calceolaria, which can yet hardly 

 be excluded from true Scrophularinece. 



Ge:ntostoma. 

 M. Bureau points out the curious expansions of the placenta in 



LINN. PEOC. — BOTANY. I 



