164 Mr. J. Miers on several genera hitherto placed in Solanacese. 



always either imbricately disposed in aestivation or arranged 

 under some modification between that form and the plicate^ but 

 never valvate, the margins of each lobe being constantly free 

 from those of the adjoining ones ; they have generally 5 fertile 

 epipetalous stamens, alternate with the lobes, with one of them 

 sometimes a little shorter, 1 or 3 being very rarely sterile ; an- 

 thers bilobed, with the lobes parallel, bursting longitudinally at 

 the margin, one of these lobes being sometimes sterile ; the ova- 

 rium 2-celled, rarely 5-locular, with ovules generally ascending, 

 attached to fleshy placentse which are adnate to the dissepiments, 

 as in Solanace(B and Scrophulariacece, a simple style, and a bilobed 

 stigma often of a very peculiar form ; the fruit is either baccate 

 or capsular, the seeds generally reniform or compressed, with a 

 lateral hilum ; the embryo, placed in albumen, is either straight 

 or more or less curved, sometimes perispherically or spirally. 

 They are plants with much the habit of the SolanacecE, with 

 alternate, simple or geminate leaves, many of them possessed of 

 powerfully medicinal properties. 



They oflfer the peculiarity, distinct from Scrophulariacece, and 

 similar to that of the Solanaceae, in having the origin of the in- 

 florescence always somewhat extra-axillary and lateral in regard 

 to the insertion of the petiole. 1 propose to arrange them in the 

 following manner : — 



Atropines or Atropace^. 



Tribe 1 . Nicotianeee, Corolla with an elongated fun- 

 nel-shaped tube, often more or less hypocrateri- 

 form,with5 nearly equal lobes, which are con- 

 duplicate and then twisted in aestivation, as in 

 Convolvulus : stamens 5, one frequently shorter ; 

 anthers 2-lobed, lobes almost free, medifixed, 

 and without connective, bursting laterally along 

 the outer edge : capsule 2-locular with bifid 

 valves, the margins of which are somewhat sep- 

 ticidal, and slightly inflexed at base : seeds with 

 a short terete embryo somewhat incurved or 

 slightly arcuate. 



Tribe 2. Daturea. Corolla with an elongated fun-' 

 nel- shaped tube, having a 5 -angular expanded 

 border with a contorted complicated aestivation, 

 as in the NicotianefB : 5 equal stamens ; anthers 

 2-lobed, lobes linear, laterally adnate, dorsally 



Nicotiana, 

 Lehmanniay 

 Sairanthus, 

 Polyclidia. 



Datura, 



attached to a fleshy connective, and bursting yCeratocaulis 



longitudinally in front : fruit sub-baccate or cap- 

 sular, 2-celled above, 4-celled below, with the 

 fleshy placentae adnate to the middle of the dis- 

 sepiment : seeds with a nearly annular curved 

 terete embryo. 



Brugmansia. 



