Mr. J. Miers on the genus Salpiglossis. 29 
IV.—Contributions to the Botany of South America. 
By Joun Minurs, Esq., F.R.S., F.L.S. 
[Continued from vol. iv. p. 363.] 
SALPIGLOSSIS. 
Upon a former occasion (fw. op. i. p. 172) many reasons were 
adduced to show why the tribe of the Salpiglossidee, as constituted 
by Mr. Bentham (DC. Prodr. x. 190), could not be maintained, 
and I proposed to limit that tribe simply to Salpiglossis, Browallia, 
Leptoglossis, and anew genus Pteroglossis, all being distinguished 
by their singularly dilated stigma and the peculiar mode of eesti- 
vation of the corolla. A careful examination of Leptoglossis 
schwenckioides has since then offered reasons for placing that 
genus among the Petuniee. The Salpiglossidee, however, as 
thus limited, are evidently most intimately allied to the Petuniea, 
agreeing with them in a somewhat similar form of stigma, the 
development of their stamens, their capsular fruit, and the very 
spiral form of the embryo in Salpiglossis, and differmg from them 
only in their didynamous stamens and the estivation of the 
corolla. The didynamous arrangement of the stamens does not 
appear to me to offer a sufficient reason for keeping them in an 
ordinal point of view apart from the Petuniee, and for retaining 
them in the Scrophulariacee ; indeed in the Petuniee and Nico- 
tianee, we find an evident tendency towards a didynamous struc- 
ture, for one of the stamens is constantly shorter than the others, 
which are in two pairs, while the anther of the fifth is always 
somewhat smaller, and frequently almost sterile; and on the 
other hand, I have observed occasionally in Salpiglossis a fifth 
fertile stamen, showing a disposition to return to its normal con- 
dition ; and I have also before me an instance of a flower with 
three pairs of stamens, varying in length, with a seventh shorter 
one, the anther of which, though smaller than the others, is fer- 
tile. The position of the Sa/piglossidee in the natural system 
appears to me therefore manifestly in the family which I propose 
to call Atropacee, or if considered only as a suborder, Atropinee, 
according to the arrangement there shown (loc. cit. p. 165). 
There is little in the genus Sa/piglossis that calls for observa- 
tion ; one peculiar feature however claims attention, the singular 
form of its pollen-grains: these are comparatively large and rea- 
dily distinguished under a common lens, each granule consisting 
of four agglutinated spherical globules similar in form to the 
simple pollen-grains of most Solanacee and Scrophulariacee : 
three of these globules are on the same plane, the other being 
superimposed in the centre, thus forming a sort of rounded tetra- 
hedron, and they adhere so completely that they cannot be sepa- 
