natural Family of Plants called Coiiiposilcc. 79 



sider my observations as either wholly or even in any considera- 

 ble degree anticipated by the passage in question. My observa- 

 tions notice not only the disposition of the five vessels in the tube 

 of the corolla, but their ramification in the laciniie, by no means 

 a necessary consequence of that disposition ; they notice also the 

 existence, in several genera of CompositiiJ, of five vessels alter- 

 nating with those, and which I considered secondary in this order, 

 though they occupy the place of the primary vessels in other fa- 

 milies : and it is this inverted disposition, indicated in the greater 

 part of the class by the primary being the only vessels existing, 

 which I have considered as of material importance in determin- 

 ing the limits of Compositse, though by no means as affording an 

 essential practical character for the whole class. 



In the passage quoted from M. Cassini (the only one I can find 

 relative to the subject in the memoir in which it occurs), the 

 existence of five nerves or vessels in the tube of the corolla, 

 alternating with its lacinise, is stated, but their division and dis- 

 position in the laciniae are not noticed ; it is at the same time to be 

 inferred from the terms of the passage, that no other vessels exist 

 in the tube of the corolla : and it is equally evident that, so far from 

 announcing this disposition of vessels as a discovery, or peculiar 

 to the order, the author rather considers it either as a fact already 

 known, or as the usual structure. That M. Cassini was not then 

 aware of the importance of the fact which he had imperfectly 

 stated, appears likewise from his having, many months after his 

 memoir was read, and at a time when he says he had finished his 

 analysis of the corolla, proposed a name for the class, taken from 

 a supposed peculiarity in the structure of the filament, a name 

 which he is now inclined to abandon for one derived from the dis- 

 position of vessels in the corolla. 



Since 



