328 REMARKS ON CAMBOGIA GUTTA, 
prehensive investigation of groups of allied species and genera, 
before attempting their disunion by the formation of new 
genera and orders. In support of these views, I think I may —— 
safely cite the recorded opinion of the first living authority, 
Mr Robert Brown. He says, in a letter to Dr Graham, 
referring to the plant which has called forth these remarks, 
* In your plant the structure of the anther is indeed very — 
remarkable, and might well induce you to consider it a new — 
genus; but it is right to add, that approaches to this confor- 
mation, and which serve to explain its analogy with the ordin- 
ary structure of the family, exist in Garcinia, with which I 
suppose your plant would agree inits female flower as well as in Ji 
fruit.’ From this concluding caution I imagine that before — 
establishing a genus on such grounds, he (Mr Brown) would | 
have ascertained the configuration of the anther in the 3 
Order, marked its variations, and then, and not till then, - 
have determined on the propriety or otherwise of assign- E 
ing a generic importance to its variations: and I can scarce- — — 
ly avoid thinking, that, had such a course been followed in 
that instance, a sectional value only would have been. 
awarded. j Moss 
I admit that a less perfect examination of the Order — 
Guttifere than that which improved materials have now 
enabled me to effect, led me into a similar error; on -— 
occasion I proposed to subdivide the genus Garcinia mto- 
four distinct genera—Garcinia, Mangostana, Cambogia, and 
Stalagmitis (see Madras Journal of Science, vol. iv. page 304.) i 
This suggestion has not, so far as I am aware, been yet E 
adopted by any one; and I trust it will not; as I now con- - 
sider it wrong in principle; the variations in structure, there z 
pointed out, not meriting a higher than sectional value in 8 
genus so strictly natural. Influenced by this reduced -— 
mate of the relative importance of the several structural dif- 
_ ferences mentioned above, it is my intention, on the pr 
on, to keep the old genus together; but divide 
cordance with them. I am induced to do 
that the variations are limited to the male 
