THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



[SECOND SERIES.] 



" per litora spargite museum. 



Naiades, et circOm vitreos considite fontes : 

 Pollice virgineo teneros liic carpite flores : 

 Floribus et pictum, divse, replete canistrum. 

 At vos, o Nymphs Craterides, He sub undas ; 

 Ite, recurvato variata corallia trunco 

 Volute muscosis e rupibus, et mihi conchas 

 Forte, DesB pelagi, et pingui conchylia succo." 



N.Parthenii Giannetlafii Eel. 



No. 61. JANUARY 1853. 



I. — Observations on the Solauacese. By John Miers, Esq., 

 F.R.S., F.L.S. ' 



IT is now (October 1852) more than two years since I suspended 

 my observations on the Solanacece, in expectation of the long 

 promised monograph of M. Dunal, which has at length made its 

 appearance in the 13th volume of the ' Prodromus ' of M. De- 

 CandoUe. Several of the genera belonging to this family, as 

 well as most of the species that I have enumerated at different 

 intervals, are there recorded; but as their respective affinities, 

 their distribution founded on peculiar features, and the diffe- 

 rential characters of the divisions thus proposed, are not noticed 

 in the slightest degree, I feel myself called upon to make some 

 remarks on the subject. Considering how little was known of 

 the real limits of the genera of the Solanacece a few years ago, 

 aware of the confusion in which these were associated upon the 

 most irreconcileable data, as witnessed in the latest distribution 

 of the family in Endlicher's ' Genera Plantarum ' and Don's 

 'Dictionary,' knowing that the species were ill-defined and ill- 

 classified, and that a large proportion of undetermined plants 

 were amassed in every herbarium, for want of the means of their 

 discrimination, it was natural that a general satisfaction should 

 Ann. ^ Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 3. Fo/.xi. 1 



