6 Mr. J. Mieis on the Solanacese. 



since that period they have become so multiplied as to equal in 

 number those belonging to true Solanacea. 



As a desirable test towards the attainment of this great desi- 

 deratum, I suggested the constant character of the aestivation of 

 the corolla, which, combined with other well-selected features, 

 will be found to reduce these two extensive orders within de- 

 finable bounds : for this purpose, it is only requisite to detach 

 from each their several aberrant cases, and comprise these in an 

 intermediate family, where they are easily separable into tribes, 

 distinguishable by marked peculiarities. M. Dunal does not 

 seem to have been aware of this suggestion, or at least, no such 

 expedient appears to have entered into his contemplation ; and his 

 ordinal diagnosis of the Solanaceie, aggravated still further by 

 the inclusion of the Nolanacefe, is necessarily a combination of 

 contradictory characters, repeating and increasing all the defects 

 of his predecessors. 



I will here recapitulate the more essential points suggested on 

 a former occasion, when upon the principle then recommended, 

 the Solanal alliance, excluding entii-ely the Nolanacece, but in- 

 cluding the Scrophulariacece, will consist of individuals, marked 

 by the leading characters just enumerated [ante, p. 3). Among 

 these, the Solanacece will embrace those genera with a monope- 

 talous corolla, having a 5-, rarely 4-partite border, the lobes of 

 which (even under the unusual circumstance of the tube being 

 oblique) are nearly regular and equal, and their margins always 

 valvate or induplicato-valvate in aestivation : epipetalous stamens, 

 alternate with, and equal to the number of the lobes, sometimes 

 unequal in length and size, and the fifth very i-arely sterile ; 

 anthers introrse, bursting by longitudinal slits or apical pores ; 

 an ovarium most generally 2-celled, rarely 3- to 5-locular, with 

 a simple style and a 2-lobed or clavate stigma, often hollow ; a 

 fruit either capsular or baccate, 2-locular, rarely more- celled 

 from the increment of the placentae, albuminous seeds with an 

 embryo, in the suborder Curvembryece, always slender, terete, and 

 curved in a more or less annular or spiral form, in the suborder 

 Rectembryece, short and straight, the radicle in all cases pointing, 

 not to the base, but to the basal angle of the seed, and turned 

 away to some short distance from the hilum, which is generally 

 lateral and somewhat marginal, but never basal. They consist 

 of plants, with alternate, often geminate, rarely pinnatifid leaves, 

 with an inflorescence sometimes axillary, but more generally a 

 little extra-axillary, or lateral, either single or fasciculated, or in 

 different modifications of the cyme, panicle or corymb, under a 

 mode of development called centrifugal. 



The ScrophulariacecE will consist of those genera, possessing a 

 tubular corolla, more or less curved and irregular, with a 4- or 

 .5-partite border, the lobes of which arc generally unequal and 



