162 JO VRNAL, BOMB A Y NA TURAL HISTOR Y SOCIETY, Vol. IX. 



placed in the Capparidacece, and by other botanists it has been com- 

 pared with the Polygalacece, Bignonacece, and Sapindacece." 

 Mr. Holmes further remarks that " in the classical General Planta- 

 rum of Bentham and Hooker, it follows Sapindacece as an anomalous 

 genus of doubtful affinity" 



Lindley has written an elaborate and learned note on the Morin- 

 gacece or " Moringads" as he calls them. He classes them among 

 the Hypogynous exogens. Violates. " This is a little group of small 

 trees," says he, " with an appearance so peculiar that one hardly 

 knows with what to compare them. It seems, however, generally 

 admitted that they resemble some plants of the Leguminosce, and it 

 is to the vicinity of those that all botanists, except myself, seem 

 agreed in referring them, moved thereto by their pinnated leaves, 

 with glands between the leaflets, declinate decandrous perigynous 

 stamens, and pod-like fruit. DeCandolle, who did not overlook the 

 anomalous structure of Moringa as a leguminous plant, accounted for 

 the compound nature of its fruit on the supposition that although 

 unity of carpels is the normal structure of the Leguminosce, yet the 

 presence of more ovaries than one in a few instances of that order 

 explained the constantly trilocular state of that of Moringa." I may 

 observe here that the term unity of carpels used by Lindley is likely to 

 mislead not a few. What Lindley means is "one-ness," "single-celled" 

 nature and not union of many carpels or " cohesion ;" for let it be re- 

 membered that unity also means il union ; " witness the old adage 

 " unity is strength." It would be well to briefly state here what these 

 leguminous plants bearing a many-celled fruit are. Loudon says 

 that CalUstachys lanceolata and Callistachys ovata, belonging to the 

 Leguminosce bear pods, which are many-celled, stalked, and woody 

 before ripening.* They are both natives of Australia ; very hand- 

 some shrubs bearing spikes of yellow flowers. Another leguminous 

 plant, Afzelia Africana^ a tree growing in the Colony of Sierra Leone, 

 and bearing black seeds with a scarlet arillus, has many-celled pods.f 

 " It was named by Sir J. E. Smith," says Loudon, " after Dr. 

 Adam Afzelius, an amiable and excellent Swedish botanist, resident, 



* Encyclopedia of Plants, p. 338, 1829. 

 f Op. cit> } p. 339,1829. 



