iSir.] NEW GENERA OF PLANTS. 121 



plant to the genus Micranthemum^ that I have been in- 

 duced to place it in the natural order Lysimachi.e of 

 Jussieu, to which it decidedly belongs, notwithstanding 

 the sing dar irregularity of the corolla. Front Micranthe- 

 mum it differs materially in several circumstances; in that 

 genus the calyx is divided down to the base into four 

 spathulate laciniss, the corolla is somewhat campanulate 

 with a four-lobed border, the segments nearly equal; the 

 stamina, however, as in Hemianthus, seated upon the lower 

 segment of the corolla; the appendage also described as 

 existing at the base of the filaments, is^ in fact, the rudi- 

 ments of an infertile stipe in the form of a minute lateral 

 denture. In Micranthemum the style and stigma is sim- 

 ple, or, with the capitulum, merely bilobed; the capsule is 

 membranaceous and somewhat inflated, the seminal re- 

 ceptacle small; the seeds also oblong and four-sided, 

 marked with four longitudinal furrows, and transversely- 

 striated. Nearly the whole of these remarks are so many- 

 lines of distinction which separate Micranthemum from 

 Hemianthus. In Linderniay to which this genus is in- 

 deed very distantly allied, there exists a five-parted calyx; 

 a distinctly bilabiated corolla, with the upper lip, how- 

 ever, much shorter than the lower. Stamina two fer- 

 tile and two sterile, the sterile filaments bifid. Stigma 

 bilabiate or bilammellate. In its capsule of one cell, 

 and smooth ovate seeds, it resembles Hemianthus, and 

 seems to indicate that the absence or presence of a capsular 

 dissepiment, is not indeed of insurmountable importance 

 in the sum of natural affinities, hence we might no doubt be 

 justified in i^ldicm^ Hemianthus with the Antirrhine^, 

 did not its stritingaffmity to Centunculus^ and the genus 

 with which we have more particularly compared it, for- 



