30 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



orders and adding the Memecylece and OliniecB, included within its 

 Hmits a hundred and six genera, among others Olinia, which we 

 have referred to the FJiamnacece,^ Miirrhunim and Fenzlia, which 

 belong to the MyrtaceoB.^ From 1848 to 1852, Naudin^ undertook 

 a general revision of the Melastomacece in the herbarium of the 

 Museum of Paris ; a considerable labour equalled in patience and 

 length of research only by that of Tkiana in 1871,* the results of 

 which have been completely adopted by Bentham and Hooker.^ 

 Naudin divided the family of the Melastomacece into five tribes, 

 Melastomece, Astroniece, Kihessiece, Memecylece and Moiiririece, and 

 admitted a hundred and sixty-nine genera. Triana modified this 

 general arrangement only by uniting the Mouririece and Memecylece 

 on the one hand and the Astroniece and Kihessiece on the other, into 

 one and the same tribe. The Melastomacece proper, which he 

 studied with the greatest care, he grouped in eleven tribes of equal 

 value : Microliciece, Fleuromece, OshecJciece, Bhexiece, Merianiecey Oxy- 

 sporece, Sonerilece, Bertolonieoe, Dissochetece, Miconiece, Pyxiclanthece. 

 He enumerates a hundred and thirty-four genera. Bentham and 

 Hooker on the contrary make two sub-orders of the Astroniece^ and 

 MemecTjlem, and divide the Melastomece into nine tribes only; the 

 whole comprising eighteen hundred species. 



Geographical Distribution. — They are plants of warm countries, 

 rare in the sub-tropical regions. In North America they terminate 

 in the south of Mexico, and in the southern hemisphere, in America 

 as in Australia and at the Cape, they rarely pass beyond the 30th 

 degree of latitude. They do not exist in Europe, and are not found 

 beyond the warm parts of China. All the Astroniece are from Asia 

 and tropical Oceania ; the Mouriri from tropical America, and 

 Memecylon from the tropical regions of the old world. To America 

 exclusively belong the secondary groups of Melastomece which Bentham 

 and Hooker name Blakeece, Miconiecey Merianiece, Bhexiece, and 

 Microliciece, Their Oxysporece and Meclinillece are from the old 

 world, and the remaining groups belong alike to America, Asia, and 

 tropical Africa. 



1 Bull. Sec. Linn. Par. 90. delimitation and synonymy of the genera, was 



2 See vol. vi. 354, 358. expounded before the Botanical Congress of 



3 Ann. Sc. Nat. ser, 3, xii-xviii. Amsterdam in 1865, and communicated to Dr. 

 * Travs. Linn. S<,c. xxviii. Our first attempt Hooker the same year. 



at classification, says Tkiaxa, comprising the ^ Gen. 725, Ord. 68. 



