THE POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 167 



Britannica, 7th Edition) remarks, formerly considered as part of the 

 Leguminoscs, but now separated by Mr. Brown. It seems, however, to 

 have more affinity with these than with others ; nor do we see in the 

 fruit very grave objections to such a supposition, as the flowers of 

 Gleditschia have occasionally two carpels united in the same manner 

 as the three of Moringa." 



li Of the correctness of this view, or otherwise," Wight goes on to 

 say, " I can offer no opinion, being altogether unacquainted with 

 Gleditschia ;* Lindley however holds an opposite opinion ; he says, 

 ' DeCandolle, who did not overlook its anomalous structure as a legu- 

 minous plant, accounted for the compound nature of its fruit upon the 

 supposition that though unity of carpels is the normal structure of 

 Leguminosce^ yet the presence of more ovaries than one in a few in- 

 stances in that order explained the constantly trilocular state of that 

 of Moringa. To this, however, there are numerous and grave 

 objections which cannot fail to strike every botanist. What its 

 proper station should be remains to be determined ;' again, 

 Decaisne seems to think it has more affinity with Leguminosce 

 than with any other order. On these passages it may be observed," 

 says Wight, " that it would have been more satisfactory had 

 some of the grave objections been stated, since it is quite un- 

 deniable that Messrs. DeCandolle, Arnott, and Decaisne are all 

 eminent botanists and yet they do not seem to have been struck by 

 them. While I thus object to such sweeping conclusions as the 

 above, I confess I cannot help coinciding with Dr. Lindley in think- 

 ing that the doctrine he opposes is pushed, in this instance, much 

 too far by these authors, though I scarcely feel myself sufficiently 

 master of the subject to join issue with them on this, one of the most 

 difficult questions in botany." 



I have thus placed before my readers the different views expressed 

 by eminent botanists regarding the position of the Moringa plant 

 in the series of natural orders ; and must now bring to a close the 

 lengthy quotation, which I have introduced more for the purpose of 

 bringing together the scattered information on this point than with 

 any hope of arriving at a definite conclusion as to which of the 



* A North American genus, of whichfthe honey-locust tree is a species (#. 

 triacanthos). There are two Chinese species of this genus besides. 



