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Revision of the Genus Diplacus. 



The type of tliis beautiful genus of West American shrubs 

 ATas in cultivation in Europe before the end of the last 



F 



century, and had been figured admirably in several botanical 

 publications, from specimens grown in the conservatories, 

 where it appears to have flowered as luxuriantly as could 

 have been desired, but without producing seeds. Owing to a 

 close analogy between its leaves, inflorescence, calyx and 

 corolla and those of the genus Mimiflns^ it was jef erred to 

 that genus by Wendland, Jacquin, Curtis and others. 



Nuttall was the first critical botanist to see and study these 

 shrubs in their native soil, and to learn the striking charac- 

 teristics of their fruits ; characteristics which determine 

 them to be of a genus wholly distinct from Jlimitlus. This 

 author proposed Diplacus in 1837, publishing its characters, 

 together with an account of the several species recognized by 

 him, in the first volume of the ''Annals of Natural History,'* 

 London, 1S3S, 



That the genus was based on sufficient characters, seems to 

 have been evinced by the fact that it was at once adopted by 

 such eminent authorities as Sir William Hooker, and End- 

 licher, who gave it its place in his Genera Plantarum, and 

 Bentham, who revised it for the Prodromus of De CandoUe. 

 The last named author afterwards, in his Genera Plantarum, 

 reduced both Diplacus and his own equally y-Aid Eunanus to 

 the rank of subgenera under Mimuhis. But in this, as he 

 acknowledges, he followed the counsel of his friend Asa Gray, 

 who had reported some transitional forms of fruit-structure, 

 linking the capsules of Eunanus to those of Diplacus, and 



those of both to Mimulus. 



The capsules of all these plants are still rare in eastern 

 and Old World herbaria ; most of the specimens, whether of 



