180 Mr. J. Miers on several genera hitherto placed in Solanaceae. 



with which group they exhibit beyond all doubt a very close 

 alliance. This is manifest in their general habit, their alternate 

 leaves with glutinous pubescence, their fetid smell, their power- 

 fully narcotic and other medicinal qualities, which are so charac- 

 teristic of the Solanace(E and Atropacece : to these may be added 

 the particular structure of their stamens, which have their an- 

 thers of a somewhat lunar form, and quite unilocular, curved 

 round a large clavate termination of the hlament, with an almost 

 globular expansion of their connective, within the cell, that serves 

 as the polliniferous receptacle, a character pointed out by Nees 

 as being foreign to the Solanece and rare among the Scrophula- 

 rincB, and as claiming for them a distinct station in the system. 

 On the other hand it should be borne in mind, that this peculiar 

 character exists also in the genus Scr'ophularia itself, the flowers 

 of which exhibit often declinate anthers and barbate filaments, 

 together with a fifth sterile stamen, a feature rare in the Sov- 

 phulariacece, and one that tends to show a very close connexion 

 of this genus with the Verbasceae, with which tribe it had been 

 before associated by all preceding botanists, until Mr. Bentham, 

 in his admirable monograph of the order, has placed it among 

 the Chelonecs (DeCand. Prodr. x. 299). In most of the genera 

 of this last-mentioned tribe, the anthers are formed constantly, 

 I believe, of two distinct and divaricate cells, affixed at their apex 

 on the slender summit of the filament, and quite wanting of the 

 fleshy connective so manifest in Scrophularia and the Verbascece. 

 Whatever may be determined in regard to the proper place of the 

 Vei'bascece in the system, it is manifest that it is not by the 

 number of the stamens that we can fix the limit between the Atro- 

 pacece and Sa'ophuiariacecE : thus it is impossible to separate 

 Celsia from Verbascum, and it would be equally as admissible to 

 include Celsia with its didynamous stamens, or lanthe with its 

 single pair, in Atropacecs, as it is to place Verbascum, with its 

 regular pentandrous flowers, in Scrophulariacece : such discre- 

 pancies cannot fail to occur in many solitary points of osculation 

 between the genera of diff'erent tribes, in all our artificial modes 

 of the classification of plants. We have also other instances not 

 less strikingly contrary to the ordinary rule in the Xuaresia bi- 

 flora of the ' Flora Peruviana/ which has a regular 5-partite co- 

 rolla and 5 alternate equal stamens : this plant Mr. Bentham 

 unhesitatingly considers to be a true species of Capraria, a genus 

 decidedly .Scrophulariaceous ; and in like manner the Bacopa of 

 Aublet with its 5 equal stamens ofi"ers another exception, l)ut 

 here the plant has opposite leaves, and possesses so precisely the 

 habit and general features of Herpestes, that its position must 

 without doubt be fixed contiguous to that genus. The same rule 

 will apply to another anomalous case instanced by Mr. Bentham 



