69 



cent fruit, a tubular inferior' calyx with the stamens opposite its segments, 

 and a valvate aestivation. 



Anomalies. The aestivation of Franklandia is induplicate, according to 

 JVIr. Brown. 



Essential Character Calyx 4-leaved, or 4-cleft, with a valvular aestivation. 



Stamens 4 sometimes in part sterile, opposite the segments of the calyx. Ovarium simple, 

 superior ; style simple ; stigma undivided. Fruit dehiscent or indehiscent. Seed without 



albumen; embryo with, two, or occasionally several co<jrferfo7ts, straight ; rarficfe inferior 



Shrubs or small trees. Branches usually umbellate. Leaves hard, dry, divided or un- 

 divided, opposite or alternate, without stipulce. 



Affinities. There is no difficulty in distinguishing this order; the 

 hard woody texture of whose leaves, and irregular tubular calyxes having 

 a valvate aestivation, stamens placed upon the lobes, along with a dehis- 

 cent fruit, at once characterise it. By these characters it is known from 

 Elaeagneae, and all other orders. The most complete systematic monograph 

 that has ever been written in Botany, is Mr. Brown's upon these, in the Lln- 

 nsean Society's Transactions, from which I find much to extract. According , 

 to this botanist, " the radicula pointing towards the base of the fruit in all 

 Proteaceae, is a circumstance of the greatest importance, in distinguishing the 

 order from the most nearly related tribes; and its constancy is more re- 

 markable, as it is not accompanied by the usual position or even uniformity 

 in the situation of the external umbilicus." Linn. Trans. 10. 36. Mr. 

 Brown has also remarked, with his usual acuteness, that in consequence of 

 the presence of hypogynous squamae, we may expect to- find octandrous 

 genera belonging to this family. See Flinders, 2. 606. The same writer 

 observes (Flinders, 568), that there is a peculiarity in the structure of the 

 stamina of certain genera of Proteaceae, namely Simsia, Conospermum, and 

 Synaphea, in all of which these organs are connected in such a manner that 

 the cohering lobes of two different anthers form only one cell. Another ano- 

 maly equally remarkable exists in Synaphea, the divisions of whose barren 

 filament so intimately cohere with the stigma, as to be absolutely lost in its 

 substance, while the style and undivided part of the filament remain perfectly 

 distinct. In another place he remarks : "A circumstance occurs in some spe- 

 cies of Persoonia, to which I have met with nothing similar in any other plant : 

 the ovarium in this genus, whether it contain one or two ovula, has never 

 more than one cell ; but in several of the 2-seeded species, a cellular sub- 

 stance is, after fecundation, interposed between the ovula, and this gradu- . 

 ally indurating, acquires in the ripe fruit the same consistence as the putamen 

 itself, from whose substance it cannot be distinguished ; and thus, a fruit 

 originally of one cell becomes bilocular ; the cells, however, are not parallel, 

 as in all those cases where they exist in the unimpregnated ovarium, but 

 diverge more or less upwards." Brown in Linn. Trans. 10. 35. This is 

 subsequently explained, by the same author {King's Appendix), by the cohe- 

 sion of the outer membranes of the two collateral ovula, originally distinct, 

 but finally constituting this anomalous dissepiment, the inner membrane of 

 the ovulum consequently forming the outer coat of the seed. 



Geography. " The favourite station of Proteaceae is in dry, stony, ex- 

 posed places, especially near the shore, where they occur also, though more 

 rarely, in loose sand. Scarcely any of them require shelter, and none a good 

 soil. A few are found in wet bogs, or even in shallow pools of fresh water; 

 and one, the Embothrium ferrugineum of Cavanilles, grows, according to 

 him, in salt marshes. Respecting the height to which plants of this order 

 ascend, a few facts are already known. The authors of the Flora Peruviana 

 mention, in general terms, several species as being alpine; and Humboldt, in 

 his valuable Chart of Equinoctial Botany, has given the mean height of 



