sary to keep it from frost in a greenhouse or very good pit 

 during winter ; and it would be better perhaps to consider 

 it altogether as a conservatory plant. It increases by 

 cuttings, but is apt to damp off: if kept in health, it is 

 very handsome. 



The first account of the genus was given by the learned 

 M, Desfontaines, in the fourth volume of the Memoires dii 

 MiLscmn, in the year 1818. The specimens had been col- 

 lected in Chile by Dombey, and seem to have been not 

 only in an excellent state of preservation, but very com- 

 plete, the seeds having been figured, although neither 

 analysed nor described. The plant now published appears 

 to differ specifically in having its leaves almost constantly 

 alternate, with much shorter divisions, its stigmas longer 

 and narrower, and its flowers borne upon peduncles many 

 times longer than the leaves ; perhaps also in its sepals 

 being less acuminate. Generically, however, there is no 

 difference between them. 



M. Decandolle assigns inflexed valves to the fruit ; but 

 this is clearly an inadvertency ; nor are they so described 

 by M. Desfontaines. 



M. Decandolle refers the genus to Oxalideae, as M. Des- 

 fontaines originally suggested ; and, in fact, it agrees in 

 habit with some species of shrubby Oxalis, and also with 

 the order generally in its 3-lobed exstipulate leaves, 5-leaved 

 calyx, lOhypogynous stamens, 5-celled polyspermous cap- 

 sule, and albuminous seeds, having a succulent testa ; but 

 the want of acidity in the foliage, the non-articulation of 

 the lobes of the leaves with their petiole, the want of ungues 

 to the petals, the equal length of the stamens, and the 

 convolute character of the embryo, are points of more or 

 less importance, in which it disagrees with that order. 

 But if we compare it with Zygophylleae, or any of the 

 neighbouring orders, it will be found to differ still more 

 from them than from Oxalidese ; so that we think M. 

 Decandolle has taken the most judicious course in re- 

 ferring it to Oxalideae, — at least till some other plants 

 having a more direct aflBnity with it shall have been 

 discovered. 



