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XX. On two Genera of Plants belonging to the Natural Family of the 

 Aurantia. By Jofeph Correa de Serra, LL.D, F.R.S. ^ L.S. 



Read July 2cl, 1 799. 



THE objedl of this paper is to examine the generic chara6lers 

 and the natural affinities of the Crateva Marmelos of Liane, 

 and of the Crateva Balangas of Kcenig : two plants, each of which 

 I conceive to be a genus by itfelf, not only diftin£l from the Crateva, 

 but alfo belonging to a different natural order. 



Among the many advantages deriving to botany from the pro- 

 grefs made of late in the knowledge of the natural affinities of plants, 

 one of the moft obvious is the facility it affords in many inftances, 

 of recaUing to their natural places, plants which, by overfights un- 

 avoidable in artificial fyftenas, even the moft ingenious, had been 

 affociated to extraneous genera. Of this advantage the examina- 

 tion of the two plants above mentioned will, I prefume, affi>rd an 

 example. 



The affinity of the genus Crateva (fuch as it was firft conftituted 

 by Plumier*, and adopted by Linnet,) to all the genera of theC^^d- 

 parides, is obvious to every inquirer of natural affinities. However 

 different the principles might have been on which natural arrange- 

 ments of plants have been attempted, this aflbciation has been al- 



* Under the name of Tapia. Plum. Nova. Plant, Geti, p. 2a, /. 21. 

 t In the firft edition of Gen. PL p. 1 13. 



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