SOUTH AMERICAN PLANTS. 115 
SCLEROPHYLAX. 
The plant upon which this genus is proposed to be established, 
was found by me during my rapid journeys across the Pampas, 
from Mendoza to Buenos Ayres, in 1825 and 1826, but I could 
not examine its details until 1827, when I was first able to observe 
the results of the present analysis. It is of a prostrate, succulent 
habit, resembling much that of a Zetragonia, more especially as 
the drupaceous covering of the seed becomes ligneous and spi- 
nescent, owing to the enlargement and tumescence of the calyx, 
which finally encloses the capsule. My attention having again 
lately been directed to this anomalous plant by Sir William 
Hooker, at the suggestion of Prof. Arnott, who had noticed it in 
the collection of Doctor Gillies, I was induced to examine the 
specimens existing in the Herbarium of the former distinguished 
botanist, which I found to constitute two other species, distinct 
from that of my own collection. These plants are certainly very 
curious in their structure, and cannot be referred to any known 
natural order. Their leaves are geminate, as in the Nolanacea, 
and they resemble in their fleshy and prostrate habit, many of the 
plants of that family, with which also the structure of their flowers 
corresponds, although these are very small and inconspicuous, 
approaching in size and form to those of Petunia parviflora, which 
18, 28, and 24, the peculiar imbricate mode of estivation of the flower, will be seen 
to be similar to that of Sa/piglossis, and therefore quite different from the induplicato- 
‘valvate manner of priefloration, existing universally throughout all the Solanaceae, if 
we except Hyoscyamus and Iycium. This latter genus, it appears to me, should also 
be referred to Scrophulariacee, rather than to Solanacee. In Capraria, especially 
the Xwaresia biflora of the Flora Peruviana, we have an instance of a regular gamope- 
talous corolla, with five equal stamens, as in Zycium. So much, indeed, does that 
plant resemble this last mentioned genus, that Sir William Hooker (Bot. Misc. 
vol. ii. p. 231) referred it doubtfully to Witheringia, remarking that its twiggy, glabrous 
stem, and long, narrow, lanceolate leaves, gave it much the appearance of a Lycium. 
The baccate fruit of this genus cannot be held as a reason fur its exclusion, as several 
similar instances occur among the Scrophulariacee ; viz.—Duboista, Halleria, Leu- 
cocarpus, and Teedia. Hemiphragma, a genus closely allied to Capraria, has also a 
baccate fruit, although subsequently dehiscent, and many other similar cases of this 
kind occur among the Scrophulariacee, We have also in Verbascum, a nearly regular 
five-lobed corolla, with imbricate eestivation, and with five stamens, generally all fer- 
tile, and for the most part equal, as in Lycium.] : f 
Q 
