Mr. J. Miers on the genus Brunsfelsia. 247 
XXIII.— Contributions to the Botany of South America. 
By Joun Mizrs, Esq., F.R.S., F.L.S. 
[Continued from p. 210. ] 
BRuUNSFELSIA. 
Upon a previous occasion (huj. op. 11. 176) I suggested the pro- 
priety of again separating Franciscea from Brunsfelsia, which 
genera had been united into one, by Mr. Bentham, in his ex- 
cellent Monograph on the Scrophulariacee (DeCand. Prodr. x. 
198). With the view of carrying out this suggestion, I now offer 
at greater length the observations on which that recommenda- 
tion was founded. Although there exists a remarkable similarity 
in several of their respective features, many essential points of 
distinction may be observed between them : thus, in Brunsfelsia, 
independently of the constant difference in the yellow colour of 
the corolla, its tube is always comparatively of much greater 
length, often ten or twelve times that of the calyx, and in all 
cases is wider and somewhat funnel-shaped in the mouth; the 
border too is much broader, of more fleshy consistence, more 
deeply and unequally lobed, the segments being more or less 
crenated and crispate and somewhat reflexed ; while in Franciscea 
the tube is seldom more than three or four times the length of 
the calyx, and though suddenly a little inflated above, is again 
much contracted in the mouth, presenting a conspicuous and 
prominent rim around its very narrow orifice; the colour of the 
corolla is constantly of a violet or bluish hue, more or less intense ; 
the lobes of the border are quite flat and rotate, and not at all 
erispate. The anthers in Brunsfelsia are at first 2-celled, with 
the confluent lobes affixed transversely, thus forming an oblong 
body grooved across, four times broader than long; this bursts 
by the upper marginal suture assuming the appearance of being 
unilocular: it takes a vertical position by the inflection of the 
filament. 
In Franciscea, the anther, on the contrary, is always distinctly 
1-lobed, 1-celled, almost circular and reniform, fixed at its sinus 
upon the apex of the filament ; it is 2-valved, bursting by a nearly 
marginal hippocrepiform line, and exhibits in the bottom of the 
cell a fleshy prominent globular receptacle, to which the pollen- 
grains are attached, as in Verbascum. The stigma is similarly 
constructed in both genera, as is also the ovarium. In Fran- 
ciscea the fruit is an oval capsule, inclosed within the persistent 
calyx, and covered with a thick coriaceous pericarp, which in one 
species almost prevents its dehiscence : in such instances the su- 
tural line is always evident, and by pressure the fruit bursts by 
