OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 315 



be admitted into Houstonia, they will hardly be left as congeners of 

 Bouvardia triphylla or Jacquini. 



Anotis, DC. will constitute the largest snhge.n\i?, o? Houstonia, includ- 

 ing all of De Candolle's first and second sections, and of Arnott's third 

 division of his subgenus of this name, except perhaps Hedyotis mono- 

 sperma ; and also two of De Candolle's three species of his genus Rachi- 

 callis. For his R. nitida and R. Caracasana are inseparable from his 

 Anotis setosa, Sec. The accessory calyx-teeth or interposed seta3 are not 

 constant nor of any consequence, (several Houstonice and Hedyotidece 

 vary in this way,) and the a3stivation of the corolla is valvular, as in all 

 true HedyotciB* Not so, however, in R. rupestris, of the West Indies, the 

 obvious type of Rachicallis : in this the lobes of the corolla are strongly 

 imbricated, as in Rondeletia. The seeds of Anotis are meniscoidal, 

 cymbiform, or at least concave on the inner face, and marked with a 

 longitudinal hilar ridge : in some species they are undistinguishable 

 from those of true Houstonia. If in others their margins are not in- 

 flexed so as to be distinctly concave on the inner face, they are never 

 like those of Oldenlandia. 



The nicer question remains as to what is to be done with sundry 

 groups of Indian, Chinese, and Insular species, which stand between 

 Anotis and true Hedyotis. I have examined a considerable number of 

 them, but must refer the question to some botanist who can command 

 fuller materials. As far as my examination extends, their seeds are 

 all much alike, and are essentially those of Hedyotis, being compressed- 

 lenticular and peltate, with a small, more or less protuberant hilum, 

 not at all hollowed on the inner face, but with acute edges. The speci- 

 mens I possess are reducible to two principal groups of species. First, 

 those in which the summit of the capsule is more or less exserted 

 beyond the calyx, and primarily loculicidal in dehiscence. In the re- 

 markable Hedyotis leptopetala, Gray,t the pod and its dehiscence ac- 

 cord very well with those of American Anotides. In H. scandens, one 



* Wight and Arnott characterized their Hedyotis as having the lobes of the co- 

 rolla " imbricated (not twisted) in jestivation." This obvious eiTor has been copied 

 all along by Endlicher, by Torrey and Gray, and recently by Miquel. 



t Botany of Japan, in Mem. Amer. Acad. 6, p. 394. The patent fact has since 

 ari'ested my attention, that this is the Leptopetalum Mexicanum of Hooker and Arnott, 

 in the Botany of Beechey's Voyage, where there is a good figure ; so that this be- 

 longed to that unfortunate parcel of specimens collected at the Loo Choo and Bonin 

 Islands, but supposed to have come from Mexico. 



