Dr. Smith's Account of Briinonia. S69 



exterior pcriantbiuni in Dipsacea may perhaps most properly be 

 deemed inferior, only embracing the seed closely, being enlarged 

 and hardened in the fruit; witness Scabioaa. Now this is pre- 

 cisely the case with what I have above described as the inner pe- 

 rianthium of Brunojiia, the outer one, of four leaves, not being 

 analogous to any thing in Scabiosa, except the solitary scales or 

 leaves in many species accompanying each flower. Can it be 

 possible, therefore, that what I have taken for the inner is really 

 the only perianthium in Brunonia, and exactly analogous to tlio 

 outer one in Scabiosa ? They both alike, in an indurated state, 

 envelop and crown the ripe seed. 



If habit were to be much insisted on, nothing can be stronger 

 in my favour; for, besides the inflorescence, when I lay the dried 

 specimens of the two Brunonia by the side of Scabiosa cretica and 

 graminifolia, nothing can be more striking than the exact agree- 

 ment of the foliage of B.. australis with the iWmer, both in shape 

 and colour; while the same circumstances, including the silky 

 pubescence, no less agree in B. sericea and S. graminifolia. I am, 

 however, aware how treacherous these analogies are in the pro- 

 ductions, whether vegetable or animal, of New Holland, but 

 their technical characters are no less so. If it would lead us 

 widely astray to make the wonderful Ornifhorinchus a bird, 011 

 account of its Ijeak, it would be equally dangerous, were any 

 botanist to refer Brunonia to the Ca>npanuhicece, for the sake of 

 its stigma alone. " Upon the whole," as Mr. Brown very can- 

 didly remarks, " instead of our being able to determine the order 

 to which this genus belongs, Brunonia seen)s to afford no small- 

 proof of the limits of these groups being purely artificial; for 

 does it not break down the barrier between Si/ngenesia and Cam- 

 panulacece, Dipsacece and Globulariie?" To this I most heartily 

 subscribe ; but if it leads to the overthrow of artificial definitions^ 



too 



