162 Mr. J. Miers on several genera hitherto placed in Solanacez. 
years ago it did not escape the acute penetration of our distin- 
guished countryman Mr. Robert Brown, who then suggested 
the plan of avoiding it by the establishment of an intermediate 
family*. Another of the great botanists of our time, Mr. Ben- 
tham, who has made the Scrophulariacee one of the chief objects 
of his study, and to whom we are indebted for the admirable 
monograph of that order in the 10th volume of the ‘ Prodromus’ 
of DeCandoile, published only two years ago, although evidently 
aware of this necessity, has never carried it into execution: the 
tribe of the Salpiglossidee, which he placed at the head of the Sero- 
phulariacee, was manifestly framed under a point of view bearing 
toward this end ; and in the addenda to the same volume of the 
‘ Prodromus,’ p. 595, he offers some remarks upon what I had 
previously hinted, respecting the separation of the genus Lycium 
from the Solanacee (Lond. Journ. Bot. v. 183). 
The establishment of the Salpiglossidee im the manner just 
mentioned, has however in no degree removed the objections be- 
fore existing, and from the facts which I shall now have to com- 
municate, these exceptions will be seen increased to a manifold 
amount, for it is now evident that a considerable number of 
nera, hitherto placed in Solanacee, possess a regular corolla, with 
a 5-lobed border, offering an imbricate estivation, contrary to the 
usual structure of the order, and although possessing five stamens, 
one is often smaller, and sometimes sterile, showing an evident 
tendency towards the structure of the Scrophulariacee ; and thus, 
besides Lycium and some of the genera of the Salpiglossidea, we 
have now Petunia, Nierembergia, Solandra, Juanulloa, Marckea, 
Hyoscyamus, Atropa, Mandragora, Nicandra, Anisodus, &c. &c., 
forming too important a number of exceptional cases to be passed 
over in neglect. Having lately examined with much care the 
structure of most of these genera, I am now better prepared to 
carry out the views, which I hinted at three years- ago, in an 
earlier stage of this inquiry (Lond. Journ. Bot. v. 152), where I 
suggested the propriety of associating these dissident genera in 
a distinct and intermediate tribe or family. 
I therefore now propose definitely to confine the Solanacee as 
* Solanacee, “a Scrophularinis distinguuntur preecipue embryone ar- 
cuato vel spirali et corollz estivatione plicata, floribusque szpissime regu- 
laribus isostemonibus. Hine genera corolla non plicata et simul embryone 
recto, vel excludenda, vel cum iis corolla imbricata, embryone leviter arcuato, 
staminibusque didynamis in propria sectione disponenda, futuri ordinis 
initia.” —Prodr. p. 444. 
From the state of our knowledge at that time, it is evident that these allu- 
sions were intended to apply principally to the Verbascee, which by Jussieu, 
Linnzus and most preceding botanists were sed among Solanee, but 
they certainly may be referred with additional Sie to the instances alluded 
to above. 
