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XIII. Review of the Order of Hydropliylleae. Bi/ George Bentham, 



Esq., F.L.S. 



Read June 17th, 1834. 



On the occasion of publishing some new ornamental species of Nemophila 

 and Phacelia, received by the Horticultural Society from Mr. Douglas, the 

 collector whom they had sent out to the North-west Coast of America, I have 

 been led to examine the whole of the species of the small tribe to which they 

 belong, contained in my own and the Horticultural Society's herbaria. The 

 result having induced me to entertain some doubts as to the importance of 

 some of the characters upon which the generic distinctions have been esta- 

 blished, I have committed my observations to paper, together with a short 

 review of the whole of the species of which the order is now composed, in 

 the hope that they might not prove unacceptable to the Linnean Society. 



This group of plants was first indicated as a natural order by Mr. Brown 

 in his Prodromus Florce Novce Hollandlce, where, with his usual acumen and 

 conciseness, he observes (p. 492.), " Distincti (a Borragineis) ordinis initia con- 

 stituunt genera capsularia Hydrophyllum, Phacelia, et ElUsia, ob albumen 

 copiosum cartilagineum, et folia composita vel alte lobata." To this group 

 Mr. Brown afterwards gave the name of Hydrophyllece, and added the Nemo- 

 phila of Barton (Bot. Mag. 50. t. 2373.), and a new genus under the name of 

 Eutoca (App. to Franklin's Voyage). These five genera, together with one I 

 now propose to name Emmenanthe, contain the whole of the thirty-two species 

 now known ; or if it should appear, upon further observation, that Nemophila 

 should be considered as a section of ElUsia, and Eutoca be joined to Phacelia, 

 the whole tribe would be reduced to four natural and well-defined genera. 



All these plants agree in those essential characters which, as stated by 

 Mr. Brown, separate them from their nearest allies, the Borraginece, that is to 

 say, in their capsular fruit and copious albumen ; and the structure of the 



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