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XI. Some Observations on the natural Family of Plants called 

 CoMPOsiTiE. Bi/ Robert Brown, Esq. F.R.S. Libr. L.S. 



Read Feb. 6 and 20, 1816. 



The class Sytigenesia of the Linnean artificial system, as at pre- 

 sent limited, constitutes a family strictly natural, and by far the 

 most extensive in the vegetable kingdom. It is also, with the ex- 

 ception of Grasses only, the most generally diffused, and is almost 

 equally remarkable with that order, for the great apparent unifor- 

 mity in the structure of its essential parts of fructification. 



This class of plants, for which I retain the established name 

 CoMFOsiTiE, in preference to any of those recently proposed, 

 has lately become the subject of a minute and accurate exami- 

 nation by Mons. Henri Cassini ; two of whose Memou's on the 

 Style and Stamina of the class, already published in the Journal 

 de Physique*, are in my opinion models for botanical investiga- 

 tion. 



A few years before the publication of M. Cassini's Memoirs on 

 Compositae I was induced to examine a considerable part of this 

 extensive family, chiefly with a view to the more accurate deter- 

 mination of the New Holland plants belonging to it. 



My principal object in the present paper is to communicate such 

 general observations, the results of this investigation, as either have 

 not yet been published by M. Cassini, or respecting which I consi- 

 der myself to have anticipated that author in my General Remarks 



* Of 1813 and 1814. 



on 



