OBOLARIA VIRGINICA. 23 



in the Genera Plantarum, where the corolla is said to be unequal- 

 ly four-cleft, and the stamens didjnamous. The genus was accord- 

 ingly placed in the class Didynamia, next to Orobanche. The two- 

 leaved calyx, if such it be, Linnaeus considered rather as a pair of 

 bracts. From the expression, " Capsula .... bivalvis, dissepi- 

 mento opposito," it may be inferred that he took the ovary to be 

 two-celled. Nevertheless, Jussieu,* who professes to have derived 

 his generic character from Linnaeus, ascribes to the plant a one- 

 celled capsule. He includes the genus in that section of his 

 order Pediculares (III. Genera Pedicularibus affinia), which an- 

 swers to his OrobancheaB, subsequently so called, f Persoon briefly 

 remarks, that Obolaria is quite different from Orobanche in habit, 

 though agreeing with it as to the flower, t By some inadvertence, 

 he has attributed to it a " calyx quinquefidus." 



To Dr. Darlington belongs the credit of having first shown that 

 the corolla of Obolaria was regular and the stamens equal, — points 

 which he indicated to Professor Barton, and afterwards to Mr. Nut- 

 tall.§ In the Genera of North American Plants, Mr. Nuttall, coin- 

 ciding in this view, describes the stamens as equal, and places the 

 genus in the Linnaean class Tetrandria. He describes the capsule 

 simply as " one-celled, two-valved, many-seeded ; seeds minute." 

 Premising that the plant is bitter (which it certainly is, though not 

 strongly so), and probably tonic, Nuttall makes the important 

 statement, that the genus " distinctly appertains to the natural order 

 Gentianece of Jussieu." Dr. W. P. C. Barton, who, in the work 



* Genera Plantarum, p. 101. 

 t Ann. Mus., Vol. XII., p. 445. 

 J Synopsis Plantarum, Vol. II., p. 182. 



^ Florula Cestrica, ed. 1, p. 21, where there is a good description and a pretty 

 good figure of the plant in question, which is placed in the artificial class Tetrandria. 



