168 Mr. J. Miers on several genera hitherto placed in Solanacese. 



family whose principal feature is to possess anisomerous flowers ; 

 but in the third case we avoid these difficulties and ensure con- 

 sistency, preserving at the same time the peculiar characteristic 

 features both of the Solanacea and Scroplmlariacece : we should 

 then have thus, 1. Solanacece, ofi'ering isomerous flowers with a 

 valvate or induplicato-valvate sestivation ; 2. Atropacece, isomerous 

 flowers, or nearly so, with imbricate or a peculiar aestivation ; and 

 3. Scrophulariacecje, anisomerous flowers with imbricate sestiva- 

 tion. In any of the three modes of distribution above indicated, 

 it matters little which we adopt, in regard to the absolute ar- 

 rangement of the various genera, for in every case they remain 

 alike, in exactly the same linear order of position. The value of 

 the Atropacea, as a distinct order, must now rest entirely on its 

 own intrinsic merits : its adoption seems the only course by 

 which a large amount of inconsistency can be removed, and it 

 appears to me a far less objectionable plan to call up a new 

 family, than to destroy the great landmarks that serve to discri- 

 minate the limits of two of the most natural families in the 

 system. 



Having shown the arrangement proposed for the distribution 

 of the AtropacecE, I mvist ofier the following explanation. The 

 division into the suborders Rectemhryece and Curvembryeee, as 

 proposed by Endlicher, and followed by me in the arrangement 

 of the Solanacece formerly given in ' Lond. Journ. Bot.^ v. 148, 

 offers by far too inconstant and doubtful a character to be main- 

 tained there, or be adopted here ; for among the Salpiglossidece, 

 some species of Petunia possess an embryo nearly straight, and 

 more curved in others, while in Salpiglossis it is often spirally 

 bent into more than a complete gyration. I have preferred rather 

 to follow the aestivation of the coi'olla, as it gradually verges from 

 the plicato-valvate of the Solanacece into the imbricate mode of 

 the Sc7'ophulariace(B : thus in the tribes Nicotiane(£ and Daturem 

 we have the contorto-conduplicate, a form by no means valvate, 

 but the flrst departure from it : in the Duboisieae we have another 

 advance, where the lobes of the border are seemingly valvate, but 

 on examination their margins will be found convolutely inflected, 

 a form which I have named volutive : in the Salpiglossidea it 

 assumes the next step here denominated reciprocative : in the 

 Petuniece we have again another degree, which is only a modifi- 

 cation of the imbricative, and which I have termed replicative : 

 and finally, in the Hyoscyamece, Atropece, Solandrece and Bruns- 

 felsiece, it becomes decidedly imbricative and quincuncial, as in 

 the Scrophulariacece, with which natural order the latter tribe most 

 closely osculates. In the Atropece the amount of imbrication is 

 small in extent ; in the genera Brunsfelsia and Solandra it is ex- 

 cessive in amount, the lobes wholly enveloping one another in 



