21G AFFINITY OF BEGONIA. 



ordinate consideration, and should not be allowed, in 

 the details of systematic arrangement, to overrule 

 characters which are judged, by experience or ana- 

 logy, to be more important. The able writers whose 

 labours we have been contemplating, the chief sys- 

 tematic botanists who have adverted at all to the 

 albumen, have been well aware of this. 



What has just been remarked, of the inconstancy 

 of number in the seeds of particular plants, and of 

 it's great diversity in species or genera nearly akin, 

 may possibly diminish the apparent absurdity of con- 

 sidering the great differences between the fruit of J5e- 

 gonia and Polygonum or Rumev, and between that of 

 some Campanidacece, see p. 117, and the Composite?, 

 as a matter of but secondary importance, and may 

 reconcile us to the opinion that such differences 

 should give way, in both cases, to strong points of 

 agreement. Even the great distinction between the 

 inferior germen of Begonia, and the superior one of 

 the Order of Polygoneoz, Juss. 28, is invalidated by 

 the above instance ofVaccinium ; and the coincidence 

 of habit is so remarkable, that I cannot but confess 

 myself very anxious to ascertain a decisive affinity, 

 or analogy, in the fructification, lest the great funda- 

 mental principle of all sound botanical classification 

 should, in any degree, be undermined. 



