159 



II. On the Genus Crescentia. By John Miehs, Esq., F.B.S. & L.S., Commend. Ord 



Imp. Bras. Bos a. 



(Plates VII., VIII., IX.) 



Read May 2nd, 186". 



XHE genus Of 



considered by DeCandolle * to belong to a group of plants 



(the Crescentiece) forming a second tribe of the Bignoniacece. This he again divided into 

 two subtribes, Tanaeciece and Crescentiece, — the former being distinguished by its sili- 

 quaeform fruit with two or more cells, and opposite leaves, the latter by a unilocular 

 fruit and alternate leaves. This arrangement was founded upon much misconception, 

 as it will be presently shown that scarcely any of the genera comprised in these groups 

 bear any relation to Crescentia. 



Dr. Seemann, in 1852 f, gave a new outline of the entire group, and a somewhat different 

 arrangement of DeCandolle's genera. He there adopted Gardner's view of making them 

 a distinct natural order, the Crescent iacece, and raised the subtribes of DeCandolle to the 

 rank of tribes, the Tanaeciece being distinguished by having a regular, persistent, 5-fid 

 clayx, and the Crescentiece by having an irregular, spathaceous or 2-partite, deciduous 

 calyx. In the Linnean Transactions, xxiii. p. 3, he gave a more extended diagnosis of 

 the order within the boundaries he ascribed to it, comprising in his tribe Tanaeciece the 

 genera Colea, Bhytlarthron, and Tanaecium (including in the latter the SchlegeUa of 

 Miquel), and placing in the Crescentiece the genera Barm entiera, Crescentia, and Kigelia, 

 giving at the same time the character not only of each genus, but of each species. 



In 1861 1, I published some "Observations on the Bignoniaceae," in which I pointed 

 out the normal structure of the ovary, fruit, and seed of the various groups of the family ; 

 and (in p. 255) I commented on the Crescentiece especially, and on its several genera, 

 showing from my own investigations, and from the recorded observations of others, that 

 all the genera of the Tanaecieai and nearly all those of the Crescentiece should be excluded 



from the true Crescentiece, on account of their 2-locular ovary. In the 'Annals' of the 

 same year (vol. viii. p. 113), I gave a detailed account of the structure of the flower, fruit, 

 and seed of Tanaecium, showing it to be a true genus of the Bignoniece, closely allied to 

 Adenocalymna, and that the Tanaecium parasitic urn, Sw., and T Vrfocimim, Seem., belong 

 to the Schlegelia of Miquel, a genus certainly distinct from Tanaecium on account of its 

 seeds enveloped in pulp, and which, from its apparently 2-locular fruit, with seeds fixed 

 upon the middle of the dissepiment, seems to belong to the same group that includes 

 Blatycarpwn, Henrique zia, Oxyclaclus, and Monttea. I showed also that all the genera 

 of the Bignoniece and Catalpece have a 2-celled ovary and fruit, with the exception of 

 Jacaranda, Calampelis, and Bccremocarpus, which I proposed to unite into a distinct 



* Prodromus, ix. 240. t Botany of the « Herald/ p. 181, and in Proceedings of the Linnean Society, ii. 268. 



X Ann. Nat. Hist. 3rd ser. 

 VOL. XXVI. 



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