340 POLYADELPH1A. 



lionaceous tribe there is no deleterious plant to be 

 found." 



CLASS 18. Polyadelphia. Stamens united by their 

 filaments into more than two parcels. Orders three, 

 distinguished by the number or insertion of their 

 stamens, which last particular Linnaeus here over- 

 looked. 



No part of the Linnsean system has been less accu- 

 rately defined or understood than the Orders of the 

 eighteenth Class. Willdenow, aware of this, has made 

 some improvements, but they appear to me not suf- 

 ficient, and I venture to propose the following arrange- 

 ment. 



1 . Dodecandrla. Stamens, or rather Anthers, from 

 twelve to twenty, or twenty-five, their filaments un- 

 connected with the calyx. Of this the first example 

 that presents itself is Theobroma 9 the Chocolate 

 tree, Merian Surin. t. 26, 63, Lamarck Illustr. 

 t. 635. The flowers have not been seen fresh in 

 Europe, and we only know them from drawings 

 made in the West Indies, one of which, preserved 

 in the Linnaean herbarium, is my authority for the 

 following descriptions. The filaments are inserted 

 between the long tapering segments of a five-cleft 

 nectary, on its outside, and each bears at its summit 

 four sessile, obtuse, spreading anthers. Aublet's 

 figure of this genus, which Schreber and Willdenow 

 seem to have followed, represents but two. The 



