100 Mr. J. Miers on the Solanacese. 



not appear anything in the description of its other characters at 

 variance with that genus. 



Upon a few other genera described in the ' Prodromus ' I shall 

 at another time treat at more length, and in now closing these 

 strictures upon the last volume of the ' Pi'odromus/ I beg to dis- 

 claim the slightest intention of reflecting either on M. Dunal or 

 M. DeCandolle, who must ever demand our homage and highest 

 esteem. I will here only allude slightly to the circumstance, 

 that although M. Dunal in his important monograph has natu- 

 rally availed himself to a large extent of the materials I have 

 contributed towards a history of this family, he has, without the 

 slightest refei'ence to them, passed over altogether the several 

 reasonings, and the numerous essential and differential characters 

 I had given, with the view of distinguishing the several genera, 

 and upon which I proposed to group the different tribes and 

 sections of the order. In offering these remarks I am bound 

 to say, that ray principal motive has been to establish and ascer- 

 tain the relative value of the facts so applied, and also to show 

 that the illustrious author of that monograph in his arrangement 

 of the SolanacecE has not selected and employed those characters 

 best suited to establish the affinities of the several natural divi- 

 sions, that he has been incautiously drawn into many errors by 

 neglecting to attend to certain fixed rules and valid characters 

 already suggested by others, and that consequently his whole 

 arrangement of the order is incomplete and unsatisfactory : it 

 almost bears the semblance of having been compiled nearly 

 twenty years ago under the imperfect state of our knowledge of 

 the family at that time, and upon the defective system of ar- 

 rangement then employed, the genera since established appear- 

 ing as if now interpolated at random, without regard to their 

 affinities, or placed as sections of old genera to which they bear 

 no relation, and to which the characters there given are ill 

 adapted : similar defects are apparent in the distribution of spe- 

 cies in several genera, as I shall shortly have occasion to show 

 in regard to the genus Lycium : at the same time all must agree 

 that the whole forms a collection of materials of much value and 

 importance. I do not presume to say that the distribution and 

 characters I have proposed are the best that can be offered, but 

 as they seem to bring together the several well-marked groups, 

 and with all their defects to offer to a great extent a consistency 

 of arrangement, they are at least entitled to the indulgent con- 

 sideration of botanists. 



I cannot dismiss this review without adverting to the admi- 

 rable work of Dr. Sendtner on the Solanacece of Brazil (Vienna, 

 1846), which is more especially deserving of attention because 

 the classification there employed in the distribution of the very 



