4 
NEILGHERRY PLANTS. 17 
This seems a peculiarly distinct and well marked genus. In habit, it so far agrees with Sonchus that 
the only British species, a very rare Highland plant, has hitherto been referred to that genus. The beaked 
achenia, however, expanding at the apex into a saucer shaped disk at once distinguishes them. The pap- 
pus too is most distinct, in Sonchus it is as fine, smooth and fexible as silk, in Mulgedium rigid and, as seen 
under the Microscope, decidedly rough. The purple flowers of the one and the yellow ones of the other are 
also ready marks of distinction. 
glabrous, somewhat panicled at the apex: cauline high flowers purple. 
Jeaves runcinately pinnatifid, doubly crenate, dilate 
and somewhat stemclasping at the base, terminal lobe — Neilgherries_ not unfrequent in jungly ground and 
subrhomboid, attenuated upwards, mucronate, some- by road sides, flowering during rainy and cool seasons. 
what hairy on both sides, especially on the veins be- 
neath ; floral ones entire lanceolate : pedicels hairy __ It is abundant by the road side leading up to Kelso 
at the apex : capitula ovate, scales of the involucrum , Cottage and also in the wood behind the house down 
imbricate, exterior ones hairy or the back: achenia towards the stream. But I have seen it many other 
LOBELIACE. 
This, so far as regards the number of its genera and species, is a rather extensive 
order, and interesting as forming the nearest point of approach between the isolated Com- 
posite and the rest of the vegetable kingdom. In the last tribe of Composite, Cichoracee, 
the flowers are all ligulate, that is, split along one side, the anthers are coherent and the 
juice is milky. In Lobeliacee, the coralla is in like manner split along one side, the anthers 
cohere and the juice is milky. Here the analogy may be said +o cease, leaving still one 
point of great importance, widely at variance, between the two families. In Composite the 
ovary is 1 celled with a single erect ovule; in Lobeliacce it is 2 or 3 celled with numerous 
ovules attached all over the surface of a large axillary placenta. 
It is the peculiarity of the ovary in connection with their very perfect capitulate 
flowers which isolates Composite from the rest of the vegetable world. The relationship be- 
tween Lobeltacee, Campanulacee, and some others, and Composite is remarked upon by all wri- 
ters on natural affinities of plants, but to me it appears that, at the narrowest part, the straight 
by which they are separated, is stilla broad one. The Composite in the vegetable world may 
be compared to New Holland in the terrestrial, an immense continent surrounded by a 
wide ocean studded with islands, some, such as Lobeliace and Campanulacce, very near, but 
still distinctly apart. The one celled ovary with a solitary erect ovule combined with per- 
fect epigenous capitulate flowers, so universal in Composite, is no where else to be met with. 
Dipsacce and Valarianee make as near an approach to the ovary of Composite as Lobeliacee 
do to the flower, but they are different: in them the ovule is pendulous from the apex of 
the cell, in Composite it is erect from the base. 
Lobeliacez are very generally diffused over the earth’s surface, but certainly predo- 
minate more in the warmer regions bordering the tropics than within that zone. This 
habit will account for their much greater predominance on the higher ranges of hills in 
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