BATIS MARITIMA. 7 



Batis, and that they belong to Urticacese, being near allies of Morus. He also 

 states* that, in tlie herbarium of Sir William Hooker, there is a Texan plant, in a 

 state too young for examination, which may be a second species of this genus. 



The Batis (?) vermicularis of Hookert is my former Fremontia,J a Cheno- 

 podiaceous plant, which I described several years ago as a new genus, without 

 being aware at the time that it had shortly before been published by Nees, under 

 the name of Sarcobatus.§ That plant has strangely been omitted by M. Moquin, 

 in his recent and most excellent elaboration of the Chenopodiaceee, in De Candolle's 

 Prodromus. In Fremont's Reports (both of which M. Moquin has consulted and 

 quoted), it was fully described and figured, with analyses of the fertile flowers and 

 fruit ; and was clearly shown to belong to tliat family. He must also have seen 

 specimens of it in Sir William Hooker's Herbarium. 



From the history of Batis already given, it is seen that very discordant opinions 

 have been entertained by botanists as to its affinities. Although Jussieu, Bartling, 

 Endlicher, and others have allowed it to remain among '•'•genera incertce sedis ;" 

 some have been inclined, more on account of its habit than from any correct 

 views of its structure, to place it among Chenopodiaceae. To Coniferse, where it 

 was referred by Sprengel, it has no resemblance whatever. Martius|| arranged it 

 between Podostemacese and Salicacese, but without giving any reasons for so 

 doing ; and, moreover, he has indicated it (without a character) as the type of a 

 proper Order. The station assigned to it by MeisnerIF is immediately after 

 Urticaceas, probably from the remarks of Lindley, to which allusion has already 

 been made. 



Lindley, in his latest work,** placed it, until better known, in the Euphorbia! 

 Alliance ; and, with much sagacity, conjectured that it might belong to Empe- 

 tracese ; at the end of which he has appended it. With that Order it agrees in 

 its dioecious flowers, definite stamens, several-celled ovary, erect anatropous 

 ovules, drupe-like fruit, and inferior radicle. It diifers, however, in habit ; in the 

 want of imbricated scaly sepals or bracts ; in the presence of a true corolla ; 

 and, especially, in the seed being destitute of albumen. 



Considering the importance of most of the distinctive characters, it seems most 

 probable that Batis should be regarded as constituting a proper natural Order, 

 and that its station should be in the immediate vicinity of Empetracese. 



* Vegetable Kingdom, p. 286. 



f Flora Boreali-Amerioana, 2, p. 128. 



I Botanical Appendix to Col. Fremont's Keport of his First Exped. (1843), p. 95 ; and Second Report 

 (1845), p. 317, t. 3. 



§ This genus was first described in a Botanical Appendix to Prince Maximilian's Travels in North 

 America, a rare and costly work, of which an English translation was published in 1843. In the 

 Botanische Zeitung for 1844, Dr. Seubert published a description of the plant, with a figure (p. 753, t. 7) ; 

 but he did not determine its place in the Natural System. As Nees's name has the priority, I have 

 dedicated to Colonel Fremont another and very remarkable Californian plant, of which there is a descrip- 

 tion and figure in an earher memoir of this volume. 



II Conspectus, p. 13. 



^ Plantse Vasculares, p. 349. 



** The Vegetable Kingdom, p. 286 (1846). 



