natural Family of Plants called Compositce. 139 



sary to give their disposition in the tube or undivided part of the 

 limb; tliere being instances in both families where the lateral nerves 

 of the segments do not unite at top; and, as has been formerly 

 remarked, several examples in other families of a nearly similar 

 disposition in the segments, accompanied by a different dispo- 

 sition in the tube. To the examples of this kind formerly given, 

 Globularia cordifolia may be added, in the segments of whose 

 lower lip there are three simple nerves, of which the lateral do 

 not unite at top, and continue distinct nearly to the base of the 

 tube, where they converge and appear to unite with the middle 

 nerve. 



In Acicarpha and Boopis the filaments appear to me jointed as 

 in Compositae; a character I have not been able to observe in 

 the very few flowers which I have examined of Calycera. 



Jn Acicarpha the florets of the circumference are hermaphro- 

 dite and apparently complete, the antherae containing pollen and 

 the ovaria producing seed ; while those of the disk are male with 

 an incomplete pistillum. Such an arrangement has not hitherto 

 been observed in Compositae, in which, wherever the central flo- 

 rets are male with an imperfect pistillum, those of the circumfe- 

 rence are female with or without the rudiments of stamina. 



The regularity in the order of expansion of flowers from the 

 base to the top of the capitulum in Acicarpha tribuloides and spa- 

 thulata, and the irregularity, approaching to the inverted order, 

 which I have found to exist in both species of Boopis, seem to 

 prove the capitulum to be simple in the former genus and com- 

 pound in the latter, notwithstanding the great resemblance be- 

 tween their involucra. The exact nature of its composition, how- 

 ever, in Boopis can only be satisfactorily determined in recent 

 specimens. 



T 2 This 



