922: CORRESPONDENCE, 
Inflammability of Dictamnus albus. 
York, December 19, 1863. 
In Vol. I. p. 345, of the ‘ Journal of Botany,’ I read with interest the notice 
of the inflammability of the flowers of Dictamnus.albus, and noticed that the 
m certain, but it is not limited to the glands of the peduncles; the little 
round glands cover also the stems of the plant; and by applying a candle to 
the lower part of the plant, in a fine summer’s evening, I have often obtained 
a sudden blaze, enveloping the stem, and rising considerably above the plant. 
The experiment can, however, only be successful once in a season, as the com- 
bustible glands are not reproduced on the same stems. The oil of these glands 
seems to give the plant its peculiar smell. Probably the red-flowered is the 
normal state of Dictamnus albus, and the white-flowered condition, from 
which I suppose its specific name is taken, an albino. 
JAMES BACKHOUSE. 
| On the Position of Monttea, Reyesia, Platycarpum, and Henriquezia, 
in the Natural System. 
Hammersmith, December 14th, 1863. 
In M. Bureau's interesting memoir on Monttea and Reyesia, frequent men- | 
tion is made of my genus Ozyeladus, with a view to show that it does not be- 
g to Bignoniacee. It will simplify the remarks I have to offer on this sub- 
ject, if I admit at once that from the moment I saw plate 51 of Gay's work, it 
was evident to me that his Monttea is identical with my Oxycladus, for when 
was only derived from the text of his * Flora ena, In like manner I first 
became satisfied that his Reyesia Chilensis is generically, if not specifically, 
identical with my Pteroglossis laxa, as ny be convinced by com- 
paring Gay's plate 52 with (by a singular coincidence) plate 52, vol. i, of my 
ill. So. Am. PL M. Bureau therefore accords with my view in relation to 
Reyesia, but we are at issue in regard to Monttea (Ozyeladus), which I placed 
in Bignoniacea, where Gay had also located it; and although the former bota- 
inn. Soc. xxi. plate 18) all analogy ceases. Here we ob- 
serve a series of characters quite incompatible with the Salpiglossidee, viz 
opposite leaves, a corolla with quineuncially imbricated sestivation, didrisnon; 
with a sterile fifth, anther-lobes though divaricated, not confluent at 
the summit, but united by a distinct connective, a stigma of quite a different 
