C)0 LETTER XXXI. 



This shews you that it is to the Gourd Tribe that 

 Begonias have the nearest relation : corresponding in 

 ten important characters out of thirteen, and that of the 

 orders thus brought into view, the weakest affinity is 

 with the Buckwheat Tribe, or only as three to thirteen, 

 and of those three characters, two are of the lowest 

 importance. Indeed, I should not have thought it 

 worth including the latter in the comparison, if it had 

 not been the opinion of the learned Jussieu, that Be- 

 gonias and the Buckwheats are related. 



AVhile, however, after an investigation of this na- 

 ture, it is difficult to refuse assent to the placing Be- 

 gonias and the Gourds near each other in the sys- 

 tem, it is nevertheless obvious enough, that they are 

 not so closely allied, as to deserve being considered 

 contiguous groups ; and it is highly probable that 

 plants have still to be discovered, of an intermediate 

 character, by means of which the two assemblages 

 will be connected. 



Before I dismiss the subject of Cactuses, and the 

 orders allied to them, it is necessary that I should sav 

 a few words upon the Fig-Marigold Tribe, an as- 

 semblage of plants of remarkable beauty, although but 

 little cultivated now, in consequence of the fashion for 

 Cape plants having gone by. The Tribe is represented 

 bv a genus called jVIesembryanthemum, consisting of 

 two or three hundred species, and to this my remarks 

 will be confined. The principal part of the genus Fig- 

 Marigold, or Mesembryanthemum, consists of shrubs 

 inhabiting rocks and dry plains in the most arid parts 



