3oa Dr. Smith's Botanical Characlen of four Nfw-Hollatid Plants. 



this chava£ler, (light as it is, conneQed with any peculiarity of habit 

 by which a Melaleuca can be known from o. Meirofderos', nor, I 

 believe, would any botanift venture to guefs at a Melaleuca without 

 feeing the ftamina, in which the only peculiarity of the genus refides. 

 ^^'hat then is to be done, when even this peculiarity feems eluding 

 our grafp? We can only retain the genus as an artificial one, along 

 with many other fuch, till thefcience be arrived at a greater degree 

 of perfedlion; keeping, \n the mean time, Jiatura I orders in view as the 

 grand objeft of our fyftematic inquiries, and cherlfliing every truly 

 natural genus as a fixed point, on which we may found the principles 

 of future difcoveries. 



I. * Eucalyptus marginata, operculo conico magnitudine caly- 

 cis, umbellislateralibus, foliis ovatis margine incraflatis. 

 E. marginata. Donn. Hort. Cant. cd. z. loi. ? 



Mr. Alton favoured me with fpecimens of this plant three years 

 ago from Kcw Garden. The feeds were brought from Port Jackfon. 

 Its leaves agree very much in form with thofe of £. robujla, (next to 

 which it ought to be placed,) but the footftalks are fliorter, veins 

 more prominent, and the margin more thickened, fomewhat carti- 

 laginous, and reddift. The umbels are folitary, axillary, and fimple. 

 Flowers fcarcely one-third of the fize of the robufa^ and their covers 

 are neither broader than the calyx, nor longer; neither are they 

 contraded in their middle. The flowers much refemble thole of my 

 £. pilularis, but the leaves are totally different. 



XXI. Addi- 



