a new Natural Order. 411 
opinions, but to examine, with proper caution, the grounds upon which they 
stand. Now the result of such a labour will no doubt, in many cases, strike 
at the root of ideas to which age and custom give a strong colouring of 
truth, and which however are not the less really misunderstandings of nature. 
Thus, to quote the only example of that prejudice which belongs to my pre- 
sent subject, who does not follow Jussieu in considering Acerine as im- 
mediately connected with Malpighiacee? Yet neither habit nor characters, , 
but merely a deceptive resemblance between the winged carpels of some 
Malpighiacee and those of Acer, is the ground on which that connexion is 
founded. Now while such a trifling cireumstance, which is almost in all 
cases only of generic value, is there the object of an exclusive attention, the 
real signs of the affinity of Acerine with Sapindacew seem to have escaped 
notice. Of these marks the most important, because the most general, is the 
position of the disc between the stamens and the petals,—a character which 
may be observed in all Sapindacee (including Hippocastanew) as well as in 
Tropeolee (including Limnanthee), and also in Melianthee and Geraniacee ; 
that is to say, in all the orders which, with the addition of Cochlospermee, I 
consider as members of the same natural class. 
Having thus traced the outline of the groups with which Melianthee may 
_ be compared, and having fixed the place of that order in the last-mentioned 
class, it remains to justify that opinion by more circumstantial details. First, 
as to the facies,—a new species of Natalia is so strikingly like some Paul- 
linie, that I bave alluded to that resemblance by giving it the specific name 
Paullinioides. Moreover, Sapindacee include poisonous plants, the leaves - 
. of several Paullinic and Serjaniæ, like those of the Magonie, being used to 
intoxicate fish; and among them the Paullinia australis, A. St. Hil., being 
suspected by M. Aug. de St. Hilaire to be the plant which communicated to 
the honey of the Lecheguana wasp the noxious effects which that distin- - 
guished traveller has related from his own perilous experience*. Now ana- 
logous properties may be supposed to exist in Melianthus, judging from the 
strong narcotic and virous smell of the whole plant; and even a like induc- 
tion might perhaps make us extend the suspicion to many of the Geraniacee. 
As to floral characters, the contrast of the quaternary proportion of the 
* See Aug. de St. Hilaire in Mémoires du Mus., vol. xii. p. 293. 
