8 Mr. J. Miers on the Solanacese. 



inflorescence generally somewhat extra-axillary, and lateral in 

 regard to the insertion of the petiole. 



The distribution of the Solanacecc and of the Atropacem, as 

 proposed in this work {huj. op. iii. 164-178), like every first at- 

 tempt of the kind, is sure to present many faults that will admit 

 of correction, but it appears deserving of the attention of bota- 

 nists as a general plan : it certainly effects the great desideratum 

 of removing the obstacles that have always stood in the way of 

 a satisfactory arrangement of the Solanal alliance, and it sepa- 

 rates the genera into very natural groups, which we do not meet 

 with in the system adopted by iVi. Dunal. Some observations 

 on the peculiar features of each of these groups will be found in 

 the pages referred to. 



I now proceed to review in succession the value of the cha- 

 racters selected as the discriminating marks of the subtribes, in 

 the arrangement followed by isl. Dunal. There does not appear to 

 me sufficient reason for separating the genus Triguera as a sub- 

 tribe distinct from the Solanece. It is certainly a well-marked 

 genus, possessing prominent characters, and differs only from 

 the other genera of the latter subtribe in the slightly oblique 

 form of its bell-shaped corolla ; but, like others of the So/anece, its 

 border has five equal and regular lobes, and agrees with them in 

 lestivation ; it has also five equal stamens, supported on a ring, 

 as in Ci/phomaudra, but this ring is more free from the tube of 

 the corolla ; its anthers open by apical pores, as well as by lateral 

 slits, as in some sections of Solanum ; in the structure of the 

 ovarivmi, its style and stigma, in its fruit, its placentation, its 

 seed, and its embryo, there is nothing different from what we 

 frequently meet with in Solanum itself. M. Dunal, on the author- 

 ity of Cavanilles, states the fruit to be 4-locular, each cell pro- 

 ducing only two seeds, which are superimposed. I found the 

 fruit to be distinctly 2-locular, being divided by a single mem- 

 branaceous dissepiment, with two or three seeds in each cell, 

 fixed, as in Solanum, to fleshy placentae adnate to the dissepiment. 

 The seeds ai-e rcniform, compressed, large in proportion to the 

 size of the fruit ; but their paucity in each cell is a test of no 

 value, for I found in Witlumia only a solitary seed perfected in 

 each cell. There is not therefore a single character in Triguera, 

 except the small obliquity of the tube of the corolla, that is not 

 met with in other genera of the Solanete*. 



Among the subtribes Solanece and Atropines of M. Dunal, we 



* I have observed in several otlier cases an equal degree of obliquity in 

 the corolla. Among tliesf may be instanced Hyoscyamus pictus, where it 

 is quite as oblique and gibbous as in Triguera : the same fact is depicted in 

 the plate given of Hiin(ici/a)7)iis irif/er, in Nees's Gen. PI. Fl. Germ. figs. 5, 

 fi and 7- 



