ON THE PROTEACEiE OF JUSSIEU. 7 



also to have been chiefly guided by this analogy and the 

 observations of others ; as he concludes by expressing his 

 doubts, respecting both the origin and use of the parts. 



Richard, whose description of these organs I find in 

 Persoon's Synopsis, has indeed come nearer to the solu- 

 tion of the question ; his account, however, of the origin of 

 the lateral processes hereafter mentioned, proves that this 

 description was not altogether formed on actual observa- 

 tion. 



Jacquin, the first botanist that submitted these plants 

 to minute examination, and whose figures well illustrate 

 most points of their structure, has adopted a very different 

 opinion, referring them to Gynandria, in which he is fol- 

 lowed by Koelreuter, Rottboell, and Cavanilles, all of whom 

 likewise agree with him in considering them as decandrous ; 

 while Dr. Smith, in his late valuable Introduction to 

 Botany, who conceives that " no plants can be more truly 

 gynandrous," regards them as having only five antherae. 

 And lastly Desfontaines supposes the five glands of the 

 stigma to be the true antherse, considering the attached 

 masses of pollen as mere appendages to these. 



All the authors who thus refer them to Gynandria seem 

 quite confident in the justness of their views ; and yet the 

 inspection of a single flower bud overturns, as it appears 

 to me, with irresistible evidence, the conclusion they had 

 formed from premises apparently so satisfactory. 



My attention, while in New Holland, having been much 

 engaged by the plants of this family, the species in that [is 

 continent being both numerous and with difficulty reducible 

 to established genera : I there observed the following facts 

 concerning them, all of which I have, since my return to 

 England, confirmed by the examination of different species 

 of the same tribe. 



The observations of Jacquin on this subject being gene- 

 rally known, it must be unnecessary to enter into a minute 

 description of those organs which are well exhibited by his 

 figures in every respect, except as to the origin of the sup- 

 posed antherae. 



If a flower bud of any plant of this family, while scarcely 



