OF PLANTS CALLED COMPOSITE. 281 



ten or four flowers in the involucrum than with nine, six, 

 or three. But greater permanence being, as has been 

 already remarked, generally connected with greater per- 

 fection, it becomes also probable that, if any species of this 

 genus should be discovered with androgynous capitula, the 

 female flower will occupy the centre as in the genus of 

 Euphorbiaceae above referred to. 



It is worthy of remark, and may indeed appear in some 

 degree at variance with the foregoing observations, that [ioi 

 although in an assemblage of flowers priority of expansion 

 generally indicates a greater degree of perfection, and con- 

 sequently a more ready convertibility of the hermaphrodite 

 into the female flower ; yet in a hermaphrodite flower the 

 development of stamina usually precedes that of pistilla. 

 The most remarkable exceptions to this order of develop- 

 ment which I at present remember, occur in several 

 species of Plantago, where the stigmata are fully deve- 

 loped, and often even withered, before the bursting of the 

 antherse. 



I now proceed to make some remarks on certain genera 

 of Compositse which either occur under different names in 

 late systematic works, or whose structure and limits seem 

 to be imperfectly understood. 



Soliva 



was established in the Prodromus Florae Peruvianas et Chi- 

 lensis, and is adopted by Persoon in his Synopsis Plan- 

 tarum. 



To this genus Hippia minuta of the Linnean Herba- 

 rium unquestionably belongs, and it is perhaps not speci- 

 fically distinct from Soliva pedicellata. But on comparing 

 the structure of this plant with the figures and descrip- 

 tions, given by Mons. de Jussieu (in the fourth volume of 

 the Annales du Museum,) of the different species of his 

 Gymnostyles, it appears to me evident that the whole of 



