NEILGHERRY PLANTS. Sl 
BORRAGINEE. 
This, as it now stands in De Candolle’s Prodromus, is a large and complex order, and 
viewed as a whole is one admirably adapted for giving scope to disquisitions on natural 
affinities and what ought to constitute the limits of natural orders, and especially on the 
value we ought to assign to the characters we select for their circumscription. Such being 
the case it has naturally given rise to considerable difference of opinion, among Botanists, 
on these subjects; some agreeing with De Candolle in viewing the whole as one order, 
but divisible into several tribes or sub-orders; others esteeming these tribes as entitled to 
rank as distinct orders, but disagreeing as to the genera that ought respectively to belong 
to each. Ina word, it’'threatened to become a chaos, when the elder De Candolle under- 
took its revision for his immortal Prodromus. Aided by rich collections and with the 
opinions of all his predecessors before him, he finally arrived at the conclusion that three 
orders, which others had constructed, formed but one, which he thought could not be 
divided. Under this conviction he reunited the separate parts under one ordinal name, 
but still retained them so far distinct, as to constitute tribes or sub-orders of them. In 
this distribution, I am quite prepared to follow him and feel all but certain that, for the 
future, others will do the same, as even then, it is not more complex in its composition 
than Loganiacee or Verbenacee. But supposing that in this | am mistaken, and that it is 
divided, then J think it must be broken either into two or four orders, not three, as has 
hitherto been done. 
The higher ranges of the Neilgherries furnish representatives of three of these tribes, 
the fourth, Cordiew, I have not seen at any considerable elevation. The three accompany- 
ing plates only represent two of these tribes, two of them belonging to one, but they repre- 
sent extreme forms, the first forming the type of the tribe Ehretiew, the second the 
extreme genus forming the transition to Heliotropee and in some of its species scarcely 
distinguishable ; the third appertains to the tribe Borragee which more properly con- 
stitutes the European division of the order, distinguished. from the other two by the 
ovary, and fruit, aided by the position of the style. In the former it springs from the 
top of the ovary, in the latter it descends between the carpels and seems to be a prolonga- 
tion of the pedicel of the flower, round the base of which the carpels, or cells of the ovary, 
are placed. : 
Viewed as a whole, the order, like those above-mentioned, is complex, but upon 
the whole, though presenting great variations of form, natural. For example, we find 
among its species handsome trees, low shrubs, and some very humble herbaceous plants, 
thus furnishing all forms of vegetation, but still a family likeness is seen to pervade the 
whole. In its geographical distribution it occupies a wide range, extending from the 
equator to either polar circle; but in that it is not singular. The flowers are generally 
bisexual, but sometimes in Cordiea dioicous, usually they are quite regular, but in some 
of the species of Borragee they show a tendency to irregularity in the form of the corolla, 
but even in the most irregular, there are 5 stamens. The ovary, as seen in a cross section, 
is four-celled, but composed of only two carpels, the edges of which are folded in and 
bearing an ovule on each edge. As the fruit approaches maturity they become hard and 
nut-like, and in the tribe Borragex separate from each other, leaving the remains of the 
style adhering to the base of the flower. 
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