622 



SOLANACE.E. 



[Perigynous Exogens. 



and a straight or slightly curved embryo ; while the latter possessed a regular corolla, 

 five equal stamens, and a spirally curved embryo ; but it was found, as stated in 

 p. 619, that the amount of curvature of the embryo and the more or less didynamous 

 character of the stamens were features too variable to be depended upon. So_ long 

 as the anomalous cases were few, the rule was maintained for the sake of convenience, 

 but as science advanced, the exceptions became seriously multiplied, and in order to 

 obviate farther difficulty, Mr. Bentham combined a number of these anomalies into a 



Pig. CCCCXVII. bis. 



distinct and osculant tribe, the Salpiglossidere, which he arranged at the head of the 

 Scrophulariaceae. Within the last few years the writer of this note has investigated 

 the family of the Solanacea; with the object of defining not only the exact limit of its 

 several genera, but of establishing more obvious landmarks between these two natural 

 orders. This research has brought to light a great number of new facts, showing 

 other cases of pentamerous flowers with imbricate aestivation, and a far greater 

 number in which the aestivation is neither imbricate, nor valvate or induplicato- 

 valvate, but an intermediate state resulting from different modifications of the 

 imbricate. The exceptional cases were now found to amount to as many as the 

 number of all the genera of the true Solanacerc, and it therefore remained a question 

 of some importance how they could be disposed of. There were only three modes of 

 doing so ; 1st, by placing them in Solauacero, but that would annihilate the only 

 valid distinguishing feature of that family ; 2nd, to admit them among the Scrophu- 



Fig. CCCCXVII. bis.— Dorystigma, Miers. 1. a corolla laid open ; 2. calyx and pistil ; o. seed; 

 4. section of ditto. — Miers. 



