natural Family of Plants called Composita:. 81 



lislied an ingenious work on tlie natural families of plants*, takes 

 no notice of the vessels of the corolla in the character of Coaipo- 

 sitae which he has there proposed. 



In the figures of syngenesious plants given by Schkuhr-j-, wherc- 

 ever the liguloe of Cichoracece are magnified, the trunks of the nerves 

 are correctly represented ending in the sinuses ; unless in one 

 plate containing Lactuca virosa and Sonchus sibericus, in both of 

 which the vessels are made to pass through the axes of the teeth ; 

 but in no case are the marginal branches noticed. It is singular 

 that this generally accurate author, in the many magnified figures 

 he has given of tubular florets, has only in two cases represented 

 the trunks of their vessels, namely in Echinops Ritro, where they 

 are correctly placed, and in SUphium trifoliatum, where, though 

 only five vessels are visible, they are erroneously made to pass 

 through the axes of the laciniae. 



The only remaining author that notices these vessels is M. Mir- 

 bel, who in the second part of his valuable E16mens de Physio- 

 logic V6getale et de Botanique, published in 1815, introduces 

 into his character of Compositae the fact of the laciniae of the co- 

 rolla being furnished with marginal nerves. This observation, if 

 not original, the author may have adopted either ffom my essay 

 already quoted, of which he was in possession soon after its pub- 

 lication, or from M. Cassini's third memoir, which was read to the 

 Institute of France six months after that essay appeared : but he 

 could not have derived it from the passage in that author's second 

 memoir, on which he rests his claim ; no notice being there taken 

 of the disposition of vessels in the laciniae. 



In M. Cassini's memoir expressly on the Corolla of Composite, 

 which was read to the Institute of France in December 1814, and 

 of which an abstract, by the author himself, is given in a late 



• Tabulae affinilatuiii regni vcgetabilis. t 1" Botanisches Handbuch. 



VOL. xn. M number 



