v 
356 NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
panying them. This also explains why apparently no notice is taken 
of several publications bearing upon the subject which were issued in 
1863 and early in 1864. It thus happens that, amongst others, Mr. 
Miers's important paper in the Proceedings of the Hortieultural So- 
ciety of London, vol. iii. p. 179 (May, 1863), is not mentioned. In 
that place Mr. Miers forestalls M. Bureau in the publication of several 
new genera. For instance, Mr. Miers's Pleonotoma is M. Bureau's 
Clematitaria ; and Miers's Tynanthus— Schizopsis, Bureau. It is really 
high time that botanists should come to some understanding about 
what is to be regarded as the type of Bignonia. Of the old Linnean 
species referred to this genus only five now remain—B. Unguis-cati, 
equinoctialis, capreolata, pubescens, and Peruviana. B. Peruviana (as 
long ago shown in * Bonplandia,’ vii. p. 274) is identical with Vitis bi- 
pinnata; B. pubescens cannot be used as the type of the genus, be- 
cause, there being no specimen of it in the Linnæan herbarium, we are 
left in doubt what species Linnzus comprehended under that name ; 
whilst B. Unguis has been converted into the genus Dowantha by 
Miers, B. equinoctialis into Cydista by Miers, and B. capreolata into 
Anisostichus by Boreau. So that the genus Bignonia would exist no 
longer, except as a receptacle of species not yet examined by any 
competent authority. M. Bureau wishes to retain the name Bignonia 
for B. Unguis, but he did not know of Mr. Miers's proceeding when he 
expressed that opinion. 
We have, as yet, only the first instalment of this valuable work, 
aud must reserve a fuller notice for some future occasion. It is well 
known that various opinions are entertained by the leading botanists 
respecting the limits which should be assigned to the Natural Order 
Bignoniaceez. Mr. Miers, in his various publieations on the subject, 
considerably extended the boundaries, but M. Bureau restricts it to 
Lubignoniee, Tecomee, and Crescentiacee, and points out the following 
absolute characters by which this Natural Order may be known :— 
“ Bisexual and complete flowers; a gamosepalous calyx, with lobes 
valvate in zestivation; a monopetalous corolla ; introrse anthers, open- 
ing longitudinally; a 2-celled ovary; simple style; a 2-lobed stigma; 
two distinct placentz in each cell, each bearing an indefinite number 
of ovules and placed right and left of the naked central part of the dis- 
sepiment; anatropous ovules, composed of a nucleus and single enve- 
lope, with the raphe inward, and the micropyle outwards; seeds nu- 
merous, and without albumen.” 
