EOSAGEJE. 433 



case of GilJenia, RJiodofypos, Neillia, Catiufia, Purshia, &c. ; and, on the 

 other hand, in certain very natural secondary groups, like that embrac- 

 ing Brexia and Roussaa, which botanists are now-a-days agreed in 

 including in the general group Saxifragac(^ce, we find a perisperm 

 abundant in the one genus, absent in the other.' In short, a 

 Saxifrage has hardly any character in common with a Eose or 

 Pear ; the types which in these two divisions of the vegetable king- 

 dom occupy the centre, the culminating point of the region, are 

 essentially distinct ; but towards the common boundary of the two 

 districts there is at present no absolute line of demarcation,^ 



The same applies to the Legiiminosce ; and it would seem childish 

 to attempt any distinction between the two orders were they not 

 represented the one, say, by the Apple, the other by the Pea or 

 Kidney Bean. On the one hand regular polyandrous pluricarpellary 

 flowers, what is termed an inferior fruit, and a plurilocular pericarp, 

 fleshy to a great extent ; on the other, free dry dehiscent unicar- 

 pellary fruits — pods in short, with a flower as irregular as possible, a 

 papilionaceous corolla and a quijbe peculiar androceum ; these, if 

 any, are enormous difi'erences in the vegetable kingdom. Yet 

 the ChrysohalaiiecB with a biovulate ovary inserted on one side 

 of the receptacular cup, become so far similar to certain 

 Ccesalpiniea with a uni- or pauciovulate ovary of excentric inser- 

 tion. For the elongated dry pod of the LeguminoscB, are substituted 

 in certain Balhergiece, as also in some Ccemlpiniem, short one-seeded 

 indehiscent fruits, even drupes in certain genera, or true achenes 

 just as in several Rosacea ; the ConnaracecB, too, are as closely linked 

 by their seeds and fruits to certain Spireeae, whose flowers they also 

 possess, as to the peculiar group of the Detariea and Copaifem which 

 are inseparable from Legimimsce. And those members of Mimoseoi 

 which have been described with pluricarpellary gynsecea,' besides pre- 

 senting completely regular flowers, have the elements of the gynseceum 

 multiplied in a way which at first sight seems hardly compatible with 

 the single carpel destined to become a solitary pod in most Leguminmm. 



• See Adansoma, v. 290, 292. Analogous diffe- fragacea, and which A. L. DE JussiEU had, as 



rences are observed in the littlegroup FittosporeeB. we have seen, placed among Bosacea. 



2 What has just been said of the relations be- ^ Especially Affonsea A. S. H., and the curious 



tween Rosacea and Saxifragacea will apply Fifhecolobium Vaillantii F. MxJELL., which 



equally well to Homalima, which it is very Bentham has recently referred to the same 



difficult to distinguish absolutely from Saxi- genus. 



VOL. I. *'^ 



