84 Mr. Buown's Obscrvalions on the 



j)lant is move strongly marked than the primary, and tVoni which 

 indeed these connecting branches probably originate. 



It must, I think, be admitted by M. Cassini, that in many genera 

 of Compositae five vessels passing through the axes of the segments 

 exist, even ten others are occasionally found, as in Heliatithus, 

 though these can hardly be traced below the insertion of stamina. 

 But as it has been already shown that the lateral or primary vessels 

 are not strictly marginal through their whole length, and as one 

 instance has been produced in which their branches, if not them- 

 selves subdivided, are at least connected by ramifications of the 

 middle nerves*, it follows that a monopetalous corolla having in 

 its tube fifteen nerves with distinct origins, three of which are con- 

 tinued through each of its segments, and unite together at the 

 apex, would upon the whole better correspond with the definition 

 M. Cassini has given of the corolla of Compositae, than the actual 

 disposition of vessels in that order. Now such a structure exists 

 in the whole of Goodenoviae-j-, a family of plants very nearly related 



to 



* M. Cassini himself (in a note to l\is third memoir published in the Journal de Phy- 

 sique for February 1816, p. 129) has given another instance of the ramification of nerves in 

 Ivajrutescens. 



t I have formerly observed (in Prodr, Flor. Nov. Holl. p. 580, and in General Remarks 

 on the Botany of Terra Australis) that Euthales and Velleia, genera belonging to Gooden- 

 oitcE, exhibit the remarkable and nearly peculiar character of a corolla having the lower part 

 of the tube cohering with the ovarium, while the calyx is entirely distinct. I have at the same 

 time remarked that, even in those genera of the same natural family in which the calyx is 

 coherent, the tube of the corolla may be supposed to be continued down to the base of the 

 ovarium ; and that this becomes even evident in such species as have the adhering part di- 

 lated into nectariferous processes ; or in those where, the segments of the calyx not being 

 closely approximated, the coloured corolla is visible in the interstices. In some species of 

 Goodenia, particularly G. decurrens and lellidifolia, I find it practicable to separate not 

 only the adhering calyx, but also the tube of the corolla from the Ovarium. In the tube 

 thus separated it appears that the lateral nerves, which preserve their parallelism to the 

 middle nerve nearly to the base of the segment, become more evidently divergent below the 



point 



