995 



dissepiment : style simple, stigma bilobed, often peculiarly shaped ; 

 fruit a berry, or else a capsule ; seed albuminous, generally uniform 

 or compressed ; embryo straight, or more or less curved, sometimes 

 spirally ; radicle turned from the hilum, which is more lateral than in 

 the true Solanaceae. 



They are herbaceous plants, or shrubs, with alternate or fascicu- 

 late leaves ; inflorescence somewhat extra-axillary and lateral, in 

 regard to the insertion of the petiole. The order is very poisonous, 

 including such plants as Datura Stramonium, D. ferox, and D. Metel, 

 Hyoscyamus niger and H. albus, Atropa Belladonna, Nicoliana, 

 &c. Like the preceding order, the members of this are natives of the 

 warmer parts of the earth, such as the East Indies, China, north coast 

 of Afi'ica, the Levant, and especially of South America. The order 

 seems, however, to extend further north than the former, as, in Siberia, 

 there is a species of Hyoscyamus, in lat. 65° or 66° N., and, in Nor- 

 way, so far north as 64°. In the warmer valleys, Mr. Anderson 

 observed the Hyoscyamus niger, growing luxuriantly, where Solanum 

 tuberosum, the only representative there of Mr, Miers's Solanaceae, is 

 stunted, both in the size of the plant and of the tubers, and seldom 

 or never flowers. 



Of the Scrophularineae, the leading characters are : — The tubular 

 corolla more or less curved and irregular, with 4- or 5-partite bor- 

 der, lobes unequal, bilabiate, imbricate, never valvate in aestivation ; 

 anthers always introrse ; fruit almost always capsular, in a few cases 

 a berry; embryo straight, or slightly curved, with the radicle pointing 

 towards the basal hilnm ; cauline leaves generally opposite ; floral 

 leaves often alternate ; inflorescence always axillary.* 



This division of the Solanaceae, notwithstanding the very just 

 objection of most botanists to the multiplication of natural orders, 

 could, he thought, be properly defended, both from the structural 

 characters pointed out by Mr. Miers, and those which Mr. Anderson 

 had been led to draw, from an investigation of the chemistry and phy- 

 siological actions of the plants. 



At least, so far as our knowledge goes of the chemical history, and 

 action on the animal economy, of the Atropaceae and Solanaceae, a 

 notable correspondence between botanical characters and physiolo- 

 logical properties may be observed ; or, in other words, by this new 

 arrangement plants of analogous actions are more closely united, — 



* Mr. Miers's observations will be found at length in the 'Annals of Natural His- 

 tory,' second series, Vol. iii. No. 15, and Vol. xi. No. 61. 



