121 BOTANY OF CONGO. 



neiisis, wliicli was sent so named, by Loureiro himself, 

 and have found it to agree in every important point 

 with Alsodeia, even as to the number of parietal phicentse. 

 Loureiro, however, describes the fruit of Pentaloba as a 

 five-lobed, hve- seeded berry, and if this account be correct, 

 the genus ought to be considered as distinct ; but if, which 

 is not very improbable, the fruit be really capsular, it is 

 evidently referable to Alsodeia ; Avith the species of which, 

 from Madagascar and the west coast of equinoctial Africa, 

 it agrees in the manifest union of its filaments. 



It appears therefore that the ten genera now enumerated, 

 and perhaps also Lcmradia of Vandelh, may very properly 

 be reduced to one; and they all at least manifestly belong 

 to the same section of Violese, though at present they are 

 to be found in various, and some rather distant, natural 

 orders. 



M. de Jussieu, in adopting Aublet's erroneous descrip- 

 tion of the stamina of Rinorea and Conohoria, has referred 

 both these genera to Berberides,^ to which he has also 

 annexed Riana, adding a query whether Passura may not 

 442] belong to the same genus. With M. de Beauvois, he 

 refers Ceranthera to Meliacese ; and Pentaloba of Loureiro 

 he reduces also to the same order.^ Piparea is, together 

 with Viola, annexed to Cistinse in his Genera Plantarum, 

 and is therefore the most correctly placed, though its struc- 

 ture is the least known, of all these supposed genera. 



1 The genera belonging to Bekberide^ are Berberis (to wliicli Ilex Japonica 

 of Thunberg belongs); Leontice {iwcXwAm^ Caulophyllum, respecting which see 

 Linn. Soc. Tramac. 12, p. 145) Lpimedium ; and Biphylleia of Michaux. 

 Jeffersonia may perhaps differ in the internal strncture of its seeds, as it does 

 in their arillus, from true Berberidese, but it agrees with them in the three 

 principal characters of their flower, namely, in their stamina being equal in 

 number and opposite to the petals ; in the remarkable dehiscence of anthcra? ; 

 and in the structure of the ovarium. Fodophyllam agrees witli Diphylleia in 

 habit, and in the fasciculi of vessels of the stem being irregularly scattered; 

 essentially in the floral envelope, and in the structure of the ovarium; its 

 stamina, also, though numerous, are not altogether indefinite, but appear to 

 liave a certain relation both in number and insertion to the petals : in the de- 

 hiscence of antherai, and perhaps also in the structure of seeds, it difl'ers from this 

 order, to which, however, it may be appended. Nandina ought to be included in 

 Berberidese, differing only in its more numerous and densely imbricate bracteae, 

 from which to the calyx and even to the petals, the transition is nearly imper- 

 ceptible ; and in the dehiscence of its antlierfc. 



'' mm. du Mus. d'Uist. Nat. 3, p. 410. 



