ILLUSTRATIONS GF INDIAN BOTANY. 53 



styles 2, simple, their bases more or less thickened and floshy (sfi/f.npodla), cuverint; the disc 

 and top of the ovary :sfii^ mas simple. Fruit dry (a crcmnmrpi'inn) cons'isting of two carpels 

 (or mencarpia) which adhere hv their face (commixKura^ to a ron.n.nn avlc /'^,„.««♦./.^^,„*.^ i,..*. 



^or viancmpia) wnirn adhere Dy their Jace {commi^aurn) to a common axis {carpophorvm) hut 

 in maturity separate from it, and are pendulous: each mericarp indehiscent, traversed by 5 

 longitudinal primary ridges (/V£r7pr/;;z7/7a;, one opposite to each petal and each stamen and 

 often also by alternatin.:^ secondary ones U"g(^ secoiidana), the ridgns beinff separated by chan- 

 nels or interstices, hi the substance of the pericarp are linear <lucts or canals (vlrta) full of an 

 oily or resinous matter, these ate usually lodged in the interstices, sometimes below the ridges 

 rarely wanting. Seed pendulous, usually cohering with the carpel, rarely loose. Fmbryo 

 minute, at the base (that is, at tlie apex of the fruit) of a copious horny albumen : radicle supe- 

 rior, pointing to the hilum. »T ' .«,... I ' 



and furrowed. Leaves alternat 



( 



cut, sometimes reduced to the petiole {vhyllodlum). Flowers in umbels, the umbel sometimes 

 capitate, usually with an involucre." 



Affinities. These are not of easy tletermlnation and are I think still to be discovered 

 If u-e attempt to determine their afBtuties by their floral arrangement and general habit fhev 

 come wrell after Sacifrageae, but if we look principally to the ovary and seed for ordinal char- 

 acters their affinity with that ord^T is remote, while with Jimpelideae, through ^raliaceae they 

 become closely approximated. Ranunculaceae by agreeing in the highly albumenous seed and 

 in general habit are also allied both directly, through Ranunculus and T/inlictrum on the one 

 side, and Pimplnella, Sca?ide.v, &c. on the other, and indirectly through Uemafk and Aralea 

 which have many points of resemblance. The affinity between these two orders is strongly 

 insisted on by Lindley who observes, " if we consider fairly the respective organization 



'fi 



ThallcLiuin in the one and 



Pimpene.lla in the other, we shall find that no positive mark of discrimination between them 

 can be pointecl out, except the superior carpels of the former and the inferior ones of the latter • 

 for the indefinite stamens of Rnnnnculaceae are no longer capable of forming a distinctive char- 

 acfpr since the discovery of Qamlea. As for Thalictrnm fnemculnceum a°ny one would take" 

 It f!)r an uni!)elliferoas plant without attentive observation. Now it is impossible to acknow- 

 ledge any sys.tem to be natural in which, under these circumstances of almost identity of 



strur-ture an I sensible properties two such orders are disjoined ; and I consider the restoration 

 of Uinhf^fift ' " ' . . ■ . . 



in favour of the necessity of this albumenous group." 



arguments 



I quote this passage not for the purpose of opposing the views of the author, though I do 

 not altogether Hd.)pt them, but in confirmation of my rem-irks under Cacteae and as showing 

 that Dc. Lm ll;y by adopting and acting on the oninion that " no division of Exo^rens has been 

 discovered more in accordance with natural affiiities than that which depends^ on the dif- 

 fereut degree of development of the flower" while he in his first by group employing one altoge- 

 ther at variance witli its principles has thereby produced associations equally if not more unna- 

 tural than those which he proposes to remedy and forms a system greatly inferior to them ia 

 facility of application to practice. By this mixing of systems there are no fewer than 175 orders 

 interposed between UmLe/liferae and RuUaceae {Cinchonaceae Lind.) and 177 between it 

 and Capri foh'act'ae fhou-h in both these we find the copious albumen of his Jllbumenom 

 group and in the latter occasionally polypetalous flowers. Looking therefore to the primary 

 structure, that of the seed, and to the episrynous flowers of these tu'o orders, I cannot but 

 think the affinity between them and UmbeLUferae is much closer than between it and some of 

 the other alliances associated in his group J/6Mme«o.sae. Had the principle been adopted of 

 associating as a class all the orders distinguished by having highly albumenous seed, to be af. 

 terwards divided into subclasses according to the flowers, we should not have had to complain 

 of the incongruity of assigning to two sets of organs wholly incompable with each other, h'wh 



values in one place and very low ones in another. JVIanv iustaaces of this could bw adtbmarl C.t- 



