ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDIAN BOTANY. 11 
root as possessing deobstruent and emenagogue properties. As a perfume and ene the 
flowers are held in general estimation among the Natives. I have not hear 
southern species of Michelia being esteemed on account of their timber, though ee of the 
Nepal ones afford large and valuable timber. Some of these might, I thi nk, with every prospect 
of success be transferred to our mountain tracts, and would probably por both useful and 
ornamental: in Mysore they might be expected to succeed well, though not equal to what 
analogy gives us reason to anticipate in the cooler regions of the Seslghadtif nd Pulneys. 
REMARKS ON THEGENERA AND sPeEciks, In this, as in most other very natural orders, the dis- 
crimination of both genera and species is always a task of much difficulty, and until Blume 
undertook the revision of the genera, of this order, nothing could be more perplexed. His 
very valuable and costly work, the Flora of Java, I have not an opportunity of consulting, there 
not being, so far as | am aware, a single copy in Madras, but being very fortunately favoured, 
through Dr. Arnott,with an abstract of his observations on the order I shall take the liberty of 
introducing it, which I do, the more readily, as it was prepared with reference to the species here 
represented. 
The generic characters peagted by DeCandolle for the separation of his gnolia and Mi- 
chelia, appearing to me involved and unsatisfactory, I requested Dr. A. supply 1 me with 
what information he possessed or could procure on the subject : the following i is his ans 
I ooked at different books about the difference Letween Magnolia and Michelia, 
and find the es man who has really made himself master of the subject to be Blume in his 
Flora Jave. He has remodelled the genera completely, and does not allow a single Magnolia 
in all East India; the true ones are all American, and are determined by the anthers extrorse. 
Then as to DeCandolle’s second section of Magnolia, about the fruit of which DeC, was ignor- 
kothing like, but to it belongs Paes insignis Wall. the ovaries contain many gid and 
are concrete, while the cpurnlee 2 are neers iF I an ese shaped fruit. A third of Blume’s 
Ms is Piliwine. “whic eo has ascertained 
scarcely to differ from the American te for which Jussien made the gaits: Here the 
Madras ie this po a new genus Fasraad it Gulllinin, in honor of Lady Grill, the 
patroness of science in that presidency.” But there it is said to be from Chi w if 
Rottler’s plant came from China, then it may be the true Talauma worn but if it. came pits 
the Peninsula, then I suspect it to be your Magnolia, probably the same as that given by Zenker 
as Michelia nilagirica; and also the same as Colonel Walker and you have from Ceylon. 
At all events whatever Rottler’s be, yours, Zenker’s, and Walker’s, have avillary inflorescence, 
and more than two ovules in each ovary, and carpels _ down the middle so as to ext half 
2-valved, and are unquestionably Michelia, 
