108 MINTS. 
Hooker at about 700, many of them prickly. Only seven are 
known from Victoria, whereas half a hundred are dispersed 
through the tropical regions of Australia. Although Greek phy- 
siclans made use of the Solanum nigrum under the appellation 
of Strychnos before our Christian time, yet its present name 
arose with Plinius and seems to have been derived from the Latin 
solamen, in allusion to the soothing medicinal properties of 
these plants. To the series of orders with symmetric flowers and 
with stamens usually equal in number to the lobes of the 
corolla and alternate with them, belong with Solanacez also 
Convoloulacee, distinguished already by the definite paucity 
and erect position of the seeds, with inferior radicle, usually 
folded cotyledons and little or no albumen. ‘The cosmopolitan 
Convoloulus sepium of our valleys with its large white or pink 
flowers and the small Convolvulus erubescens of our pasture 
grounds may serve as readily attainable examples for the study 
of these kinds of plants. 
XVIII—THE MINTS 
AND ALLIED PLANTS. 
Tue order, to which the Mints and cognate plants are pertaining, 
is known phytographically as that of the Ladiate, the name being 
bestowed by Bern. de Jussieu about the middle of the last century 
on this ordinal group of plants, because the irregularly shaped 
corolla forms towards the summit two unequal divisions, compared 
to lips, though both usually subdivided, the upper portion in two, 
the lower in three lobes. But this form of the corolla is not 
peculiar to Labiate ; contrarily it is shared by several other 
orders of plants, of which may be mentioned as represented in 
Victoria: Scrophularine, Orobanchee, Lentibularine, Bigno- 
niaceee, Gesneriaceee, Myoporine and Verbenaceze. Among these 
the last mentioned approaches structurally nearest to Labiate ; 
