Mr. J. Miers on the Solanacese. 7 



bilabiate, and decidedly imbricate, never valvate, in aestivation ; 

 stamens two or four, didynamous, rarely five, or with a rudi- 

 mentary fifth ; anthers always introrse ; an ovarium most gene- 

 rally bilocular, a simple style, with a stigma more or less bila- 

 biate or 2-lobed j fruit almost always capsular, in a very few 

 cases baccate, 2-locular, rarely more- celled, bursting in different 

 ways, with placentse proceeding from the dissepiment. Seeds 

 albuminous, with an embryo quite straight, or but little curved^ 

 generally with the radicle pointed towards a basal hilum : in one 

 solitary instance the embryo is perispherically curved, and in the 

 Rhinanthece, by an abnormal extension of the podosperm ; the 

 hilum appears somewhat lateral. In this very natm*al family, 

 although the floral leaves are often alternate, the cauline leaves 

 are most generally opposite, a circumstance that occurs only ac- 

 cidentally in Solanacece : the inflorescence is strictly axillary*. 



The Atropacece will comprise all the anomalous exceptions to 

 the foregoing rules in the Solanacece and Scrophulariacea, and 

 will include plants with monopetalous flowers, with the tube 

 often plicated longitudinally in bud, and a border often some- 

 what unequal, but seldom bilabiate, generally divided into five 

 lobes, which are always either imbricately disposed in aestivation, 

 or arranged under some modification between that form and the 

 induplicate, but never valvate, the margins of each lobe being con- 

 stantly free from the adjoining ones : they have generally five 

 epipetalous fertile stamens, alternate with the lobes, one of them 

 sometimes shorter, and very rarely three of them sterile : anthers 

 generally introrse, sometimes extrorse, 2-lobed, usually with par- 

 allel cells bursting longitudinally, one of the lobes being occa- 

 sionally sterile : ovarium 2-locular, rarely, with other spurious 

 cells, caused by the abnormal growth of the placentae, with ovules 

 generally ascending, attached to fleshy placentae adnate to the 

 dissepiment, as in the two preceding families, a simple style, a 

 bilobed stigma, often of a peculiar form : fruit either baccate or 

 capsular : seeds generally reniform and compressed, with a lateral 

 hilum, the embiyo placed in albumen, and either straight or 

 more or less curved, sometimes spiral, with the radicle, as in the 

 Solanacece, always turned away from the more lateral hilum. 

 Herbaceous plants or shrubs, with a habit similar to that of the 

 Solanacece, with alternate, simple, geminate, or fasciculate leaves : 



* The efficacy of this test may be applied to Verbascum, a genus of the 

 Scrophulariaceie, which offers so many anomalous characters, as to have 

 induced many botanists to place it in Solanacece. On a former occasion I 

 discussed this subject at some length {htij. op. iii. 181), when reasons were 

 shown why a preponderance tended towards its position among the Scro- 

 phulariacecB as determined by Mr. Bentham : to these I may now add the 

 fact of the structure of the seed, in which the radicle of its straight embryo 

 is directed towards its basal hilum. 



