natural Famibi of FknUs called Compositce. 87 



observations formerly quoted, stated this to be valvular, that is, 

 having the margins of the segments apphed to each other and 

 dehiscing like the valves of a capsule. As I liave remarked in 

 the same place that this aestivation exists in several other fami- 

 lies, it is rather surprising that M. Cassini, in the abstract of his 

 third memoir given in the Nouveau Bulletin dcs Sciences for last 

 October, should seem to consider this characteras peculiar to Com- 

 positaj*. It appears also that he is not aware of any exception to 

 itin the class. I have however, in a different part of the same essay, 

 noticed one exception existing in Chuquiraga, and I have since 

 found another in Corymbium. In both these genera the aestivation 

 is induplicate, that is, the margins of the segments are doubled in, 

 so that in the unexpanded state none of them are visible. I have 



* Since tliis paper was read, M. Cassini has pulilished his memoir (in the Journal de 

 Physique for February 1816), in which he states the same aestivation to exist in certain 

 other families, niimely, Campanulaceae, Lobelinccse, and Rubiaceie. This observation, if 

 ■applied to the whole of these families, as is evidently the author's intention, is correct only 

 «itli respect to Cainpanuiaceie, from which I have se))arated Stylidese as a distinct order, 

 partly, as I have stated, on account of its imbricate jestivation. In a considerable part of the 

 Lobeliacese of Jussieu, which includes my Goodenoviae, the aestivation is not valvular but indu- 

 plicate: and though in RubiaccEe the valvular mode is very general, there are manv remark- 

 able exceptions to it, as Gardenia, Ixora, Pavella, Cojf'eu, and several other genera, where 

 it is unilaterally and obliquely imbricate, as in most of the Apociiiea;, with which Linneus 

 united them under the name of Contortsc, derived from this very circiiiiistance. On this 

 subject 1 may be allowed further to remark, that M. Cassini, who in the memoir now cited 

 has repeatedly asserted his claim to the priority of the observation on the disposition of 

 vessels in the corolla, has in treating of its aestivation omitted to notice what had been 

 already published respecting it in my essay above quoted, where I conclude he must have 

 seen my observation, as he refers to the sentence containing it. The aestivation of corolla 

 in Compositae is also noticed in the observations on Brtniovia, contained in my Prodromus 

 Florae Novae Hollandiae, which I suppose he has not seen : I may therefore, for the 

 general importance of aestivation of calyx and corolla in affording characters both for Orders 

 and Genera, refer him to almost every page of the same work, and to its preface, for an 

 observation on the degree of attention that liad been previoiisly paid to this point of structure, 

 which will enable him to correct in .some measure his own remark on the subject. 



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