473 



family, varied in such a one and such another; since he would thus 

 arrive at the value of each characteristic, and this value, once deter- 

 mined by means of these groups so clearly arranged by Nature herself, 

 could in its turn be applied to the determination of those on which 

 she has not so clearly imprinted this family likeness, and which were 

 the unknown quantities in the great problem. He chose, therefore, 

 seven families universally admitted ; those, which are known under 

 the names of Gramineae (Graminees), Liliaceae (Liliacees), Labiatae 

 (Labiees), Compositae (Composites), Umbelliferae (Umbelliferes), Cru- 

 ciferae (Cruciferes), and Leguminosae (L&gumineuses). He discovered 

 that the structure of the embryo is identical in all the plants of one of 

 these families ; that it is Monocotyledonous in the Gramineae and 

 in the Liliaceae, Dicotyledonous in the five others ; that the structure 

 of the seed is also identical ; the Monocotyledonous embryo is placed 

 in the axis of a fleshy perisperm in the Liliaceae, on the side of a fari- 

 naceous perisperm in the Gramineae ; the Dicotyledonous embryo, 

 at the summit of a hard and horny perisperm in the Umbelliferae, 

 without a perisperm in the three others ; that the stamens, which may 

 vary in their number in the same family, the Gramineae, for instance, 

 do not generally vary in the method of their insertion, Hypogynous 

 in the Gramineae and in the Cruciferae ; on the corolla in the La- 

 biatae and the Compositae ; on an epigynous disk in the Umbelliferae. 

 He thus obtained the value of certain characteristics which would not 

 vary in the same natural family. But, less in importance than these, 

 there were others more variable, which he tried to appreciate in the 

 same way, either by the study of other families formed by Nature her- 

 self, or in those which he formed by applying these first rules and 

 several others, also founded on his observations. We cannot here 

 enter into the details of this long and arduous undertaking, from 

 which resulted a hundred families containing all the plants known at 

 that time."— p. 580. K. 



Reply to the Editorial Observations on the Robertsonian Saxifrages, 

 at page 451, tyc. By Charles Cardale Babington, Esq., 

 M.A., F.L.S., &c. 



In reply to the remarks of " C." in the ' Phytologist ' (Phytol. iii. 



451, 452), I wish to state that there has never been any desire on my 



part to avoid the acknowledgment of a " mistake " of mine, which 



indeed was not a mistake at the time of its publication. As the new 



Vol. hi. 3 u 



