458 Bromhead's Arrangemeiit of the Botanical Families 



tubers of the potato put out shoots, and nourish them for some 

 time; I think it may be admitted, that not only solid biilbs, but 

 also those that are scaly and tuberous, are intended to nourish 

 the plant with their substance. 



Fig. 73- is a fac-simile of the engraving given by Dr. Trin- 

 chinetti, to illustrate his pamphlet ; and represents a bulb of 

 saffron with two offsets, and a central flower, cut through lon- 

 gitudinally. In this figure, a a are the sheaths of the bundles of 

 leaves produced by the two offsets ; and h the main bundle pro- 

 ceeding from the old bulb, and containing, also, the flower; ccc 

 are the vital specks, or germs; cl^ the starchy milk-white matter 

 which forms the solid part of the bulb, and which is deposited 

 by the leaves of the offsets on their germs, and taken up in the 

 old bulb for the support of the leaves and flowers; ^ isa kind of 

 thread, which serves for the conveyance of the starchy matter 

 between the germ and the leaves ; f is the central point in the 

 old bulb, connected by fibres with the germs of the principal stem 

 and offsets, whence the circumferential roots {g g) have their 

 origin ; and h h are the fusiform roots sent down by the offsets. 



Art. IV. Notice of a Sketch of an Arrangement of the Botanical 

 Families in Natural Groups, Alliances, and Races ; tvith Remarks 

 by Sir Edward Ff ranch Bromhead, Bart., F.ll.S. ; London and 

 Edinburgh ; published in the Edinburgh New PhilosophicalJournal 

 for April, 1836. By J. D. 



Sir E. F. Bromhead views botany as now in a state of 

 interregnum ; and his treatise may be considered as a new form 

 of government, which he has proposed for the regulation of it. 

 Dr. Lindley has already published one, which is noticed in 

 p. 37 — 49.; and Dr. Von Martins has published another. 



Sir E. F. Bromhead's description of the nature of his arrange- 

 ment is brief, and not explicit; he, perhaps, purposing it for the 

 attention of proficients rather than students, to the former of 

 whom much description and explication might be deemed need- 

 less. To oneself, in the capacity of student, the following seem 

 to be, at least some of, the characteristic points of it. First, as 

 to definitions of principles : of these he has twelve, of which it 

 may be sufficient, to give some notion of the author's scheme of 

 arrangement, to supply explanation of the following : — " Families 

 having any similarity of structure are, in that respect, said to 

 have a relation." This seems to be, perhaps, something more than 

 the relation of analogy. (See Lindley's jKej/, §560.) The term 

 families seems used as an equivalent for the terms orders and 

 suborders, the latter taken either separately or together. " Re- 

 lated families lying in the same neighbourhood are said to have 



