64 APPENDIX. 



F 



in the least degree acquainted^ but from the description there 

 given, it cannot be, as M. Dunal states, allied to Lycium^ on ac- 

 count of its herbaceous habit and the valvate aestivation of its 

 flowers : judging from the characters there described it appears 

 to be very near Capsicum, and indeed to differ little from that 

 genus : it accords in the form of its unchanged persistent calyx, 

 in the shape and size of its corolla, the insertion of its short sta- 

 mens, and its apiculated cordate subexserted anthers : there does 

 not appear anything in the description of its other characters at 

 variance with that genus. 



Upon a few other genera described in the ' Prodromus ^ I shall 

 at another time treat at more length, and in now closing these 

 strictures upon the last volume of the ^ Prodromus,' I beg to dis- 

 claim the slightest intention of reflecting either on M. Dunal or 

 M. DeCandoUe, who must ever demand our homage and highest 

 esteem. I will here only allude slightly to the circumstance, 

 that although M. Dunal in his important monograph has natu- 

 rally availed himself to a large extent of the materials I have 

 contributed towards a history of this family, he has, without the 

 slightest reference to them, passed over altogether the several 

 reasonings, and the numerous essential and differential characters 

 I had given, with the view of distinguishing the several genera, 

 and upon which I proposed to group the different tribes and 

 sections of the order. In offering these remarks I am bound 

 to say, that my principal motive has been to establish and ascer- 

 tain the relative value of the facts so applied, and also to show 

 that the illustrious author of that monograph in his arrangement 

 of the Solanacecs has not selected and employed those characters 

 best suited to establish the affinities of the several natural divi- 

 sions, that he has been incautiously drawn into many errors by 

 neglecting to attend to certain fixed rules and valid characters 

 already suggested by others, and that consequently his whole 

 arrangement of the order is incomplete and unsatisfactory: it 

 almost bears the semblance of having been compiled nearly 

 twenty years ago under the imperfect state of our knowledge of 

 the family at that time, and upon the defective system of ar- 

 rangement then employed, the genera since established appear- 

 ing as if now interpolated at random, without regard to their 

 affinities, or placed as sections of old genera to which they bear 

 no relation, and to which the characters there given are ill 

 adapted : similar defects are apparent in the distribution of spe- 

 cies in several genera, as I shall shortly have occasion to show 

 in regard to the genus Lycium : at the same time all must agree 

 that the whole forms a collection of materials of much value and 

 imporiance. I do not presume to say that the distribution and 

 characters I have proposed are the best that can be offered, but 



