nOSACEJS. 403 



case of GiUenia, Rhodofi/jjos, Neillia, Canufia, 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 Saxifragacca, we find a perisperm 

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

 Saxifrage has hardly any character in common with a Rose 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 Leguminosce ; 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 quite peculiar androceum ; these, if 

 any, are enormous differences in the vegetable kingdom. Yet 

 the Chrysobalanece with a biovulate ovary inserted on one side 

 of the receptacular cup, become so far similar to certain 

 Ccesal/piniece with a uni- or pauciovulate ovary of excentric inser- 

 tion. For the elongated dry pod of the LegimiinosfP-, are substituted 

 in certain BalhergiecB, as also in some Casalpiniea, short one-seeded 

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

 just as in several Rosacece ; the Connaracem, too, are as closely linked 

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

 possess, as to the pecuHar group of the BetariecB and CopaifercB which 

 are inseparable from Leguminosce. And those members of Mimosece 

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

 senting completely regular flowers, have the elements of the gyna3ccum 

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

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



' See Adansonia, v. 290, 292. Analogous diffe- fragacea;, and whith A. L. de .Tussief hud, as 



rences are observed in the little group Pittos/iorecE. we have seen, placed among Rosacea'. 



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



tvveen Rosacem and Saxifragace(F will apply PHhecolobhm Vaillanfii F. Muell., wliicli 



equally well to Homahlnem, which it is very BENTvrAM has recently referred to the same 



difficult to distinguish absolutely from Saxi- genus. 



VOL. I. 



rr 



