THE ANNALS 
AND 
MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
[SECOND SERIES. | 
No. 15. MARCH 1849. 
ee ES 
—<——_- 
XVII1.—Observations upon several genera hitherto placed in 
Solanaceze, and upon others intermediate between that family 
and the Scrophulariacee. By Joun Mters, Esq., F.R.S., 
F.L.S. &e. 
My attention during the last few years having been directed to 
the study of the Solanaceae, I have given the results of this in- 
quiry in a series of memoirs in the ‘ Lond. Journ. Bot.,’ vols. iv., 
v. and vii., and also in the ‘ Illustration of South Amer. Plants,’ 
where delineations are offered of the peculiar features of each 
genus. Having at length completed the analysis of the remain- 
ing genera of this order, the results will be given in succession 
in this Journal ; but in order to explain my views in regard to 
that family, the following observations are necessary. 
_ Following the track I had marked out as the basis of these 
investigations, which has been chiefly to satisfy myself by careful 
- analysis of the true limits that serve to separate different genera, 
I have encountered a number of facts which are very difficult to 
reconcile with our present distribution of the Solanacee, and 
which have induced me to carry this inquiry much further than 
was at first contemplated. These results having been published 
at intervals, as they presented themselves, the order in which 
they have appeared is necessarily imperfect in a systematic point 
of view ; but as my principal object has been to arrive at truth, 
I expect some degree of indulgence, for what may appear as de- 
fects of arrangement and want of plan. I have alluded to the 
increasing number of novel cases that have offered themselves 
during this inquiry, which render it difficult to decide whether 
certain genera should be classed in Solanacee or in Scrophula- 
riacee, as these natural orders are at present considered ; and in 
consequence of the accumulation of these anomalies, it appears 
at length necessarily expedient to draw a more certain line of 
distinction between tie two important natural orders. This 
difficulty is not new in the history of the science, for nearly forty 
Ann, & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 2. Vol. iu. 11 
