163 Mr. J. Miers on several genera hitherto placed in Solauacese. 



years ago it did not escape the acute penetration of our distin- 

 guished countryman Mr. Robert Brown, who then suggested 

 the plan of avoiding it by the estabhshment of an intermediate 

 family*. Another of the great botanists of our time, Mr. Ben- 

 tham, who has made the Scrophulariacece one of the chief objects 

 of his study, and to whom we are indebted for the admirable 

 monograph of that order in the 10th volume of the ' Prodromus ' 

 of DeCandolle, published only two years ago, although evidently 

 aware of this necessity, has never carried it into execution : the 

 tribe of the SalpiglossidecE, which he placed at the head of the Scro- 

 phulariacece, was manifestly framed under a point of view bearing 

 toward this end ; and in the addenda to the same volume of the 

 ' Prodromus,^ p. 595, he offers some remarks upon what I had 

 previously hinted, respecting the separation of the genus Lycium 

 from the Solanacece (Lond. Journ. Bot. v. 183). 



The establishment of the Salpiglossidece in the manner just 

 mentioned, has however in no degree removed the objections be- 

 fore existing, and from the facts which I shall now have to com- 

 municate, these exceptions will be seen increased to a manifold 

 amount; for it is now evident that a considerable number of ge- 

 nera, hitherto placed in Solanacece, possess a regular corolla, with 

 a 5-lobed border, offering an imbricate aestivation, contrary to the 

 usual structure of the order, and although possessing five stamens, 

 one is often smaller, and sometimes sterile, showing an evident 

 tendency towards the structure of the Scrophulariacea* ; and thus, 

 besides Lycium and some of the genera of the Salpiylossidece, we 

 have now Petunia, Nieremhergia, Solandra, Juanulloa, Marckea, 

 HyoscyamuSf Atropa, Mandragora, Nicandra, Anisodus, &c. &c., 

 forming too important a number of exceptional cases to be passed 

 over in neglect. Having lately examined with much care the 

 structure of most of these genera, I am now better prepared to 

 carry out the views, which I hinted at three years ago, in an 

 earlier stage of this inquiry (Lond. Journ. Bot. v. 152), where I 

 suggested the propriety of associating these dissident genera in 

 a distinct and intermediate tribe or family. 



I therefore now propose definitely to confine the Solanacece as 



* Solanacece, "a Scrophularinis distinguuntur prsecipiie embryone ar- 

 cuato vel spiral! et corollse aestivatione plicata, floribusque saepissime regu- 

 laribus isostemonibus. Hinc genera corolla non plicata et simul embryone 

 recto, vel excludenda, vel cum iis corolla imbricata, embryone leviter arcuato, 

 staminibusque didynamis in propria sectione disponenda, futuri ordinis 

 initia." — Prodr. p. 444. 



From tbe state of our knowledge at that time, it is evident that these allu- 

 sions were intended to apply principally to the Verbascece, which by Jussieu, 

 Linnaeus and most preceding botanists were classed among Solanece, but 

 they certainly may be referred with additional force to the instances alluded 

 to above. 



