6 Mr. John Lindley on the 



oTer with an indefinite number of colourless vittse, both on the 

 commissure and back ; it has an involute horny albumen, and 

 a minute, inverted, white embryo at its upper extremity ; the coty- 

 ledons are flat and oval, the radicle rounded, and as long as the 

 cotyledons. 



From the foregoing description, which has been formed from 

 such materials as have reached this country, it appears that the 

 Prangos Hay Plant belongs to the natural order of Umbelliferse, 

 and that it bears much affinity to the genus Cachrys, with which it 

 agrees in the corky nature of its pericarpium, in the absence of 

 secondary juga, in having no vittse, and in the involute structure 

 of its albumen. With Krubera of Hoffmann, which it resembles 

 in the general appearance of its fruit, it may also be compared, 

 notwithstanding its difference of habit ; with that genus, however, 

 it cannot be united, on account of its involute not solid albumen, 

 numerous vittae, and lanceolate not emarginate petals. From 

 Laserpitium it differs materially in having involute albumen, an 

 indefinite number of vittge, and no secondary juga, while its pri- 

 mary juga, which in Laserpitium are obsolete, are in Prangos the 

 most conspicuous part of the fruit. To Rumia of Hoffmann it is 

 not referable because of its solid pericarpium, distinct winged juga, 

 and long flat achenia. 



To revert, therefore, to Cachrys, with which, as I have already 

 stated, Prangos has many points in common : if Cachrys Mori- 

 soni, the fruit of which has a solid, corky smooth pericarp, with 

 its juga nearly obsolete, is to be considered the species in which 

 the essential character of the genus is to be sought, it is obvious 

 that Prangos cannot be considered of the same genus. But if 

 Cachrys be admitted in the form under which it has been placed 

 by Sprengel in the sixth volume of Romer and Schultes's Species 

 Plantarum, it is equally certain that the subject of this article 

 cannot be separated from it. Differences in the fruit and petals 

 of Umbelliferae are, however, by the common consent of bota- 

 nists, admitted to be of such importance in fixing the charac- 

 ters of the genera of that order, that a combination of plants, 

 like that which has been attempted in the work above quoted, 



