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



9. Solandrece. — These form a very natural group, being all 

 suffruticose, mostly subscandent plants, with large leaves and 

 generally showy flowers. I have been enabled to obtain very 

 satisfactory elements of the little-known genera Juanulloa and 

 Marckea, besides those of two new genera. They bear a some- 

 what similar position among the Atropacece that the Metterni- 

 chiecB hold among the Solanacece, and the analogy in the struc- 

 ture of the seeds of Marckea and Metternichia is sufficiently re- 

 markable. 



10. BrunsfelsiecB. — This group, consisting of some of the plants 

 placed by Mr. Bentham in his SalpiglossidecBi is distinguishable 

 from that tribe as above limited by the absence of the remark- 

 able dilatation of the stigma : it will comprise the genera Bruns- 

 felsia, Franciscea and Heteranthia : the latter much resembles 

 Browallia in its habit, but it accords with the two former genera 

 in the structure of its anthers, which are unilocular, and curved 

 in the shape of a horseshoe round a fleshy globular connective, 

 that in great part enters into and nearly fills the cavity of the 

 cell, as in the Verbascea, I have here considered Franciscea as 

 distinct from Brunsfelsia, which Mr. Bentham (in DeCand. Prodr. 

 X. p. 198) combined together under one genus. In Brunsfelsia 

 however the corolla is always of a yellowish colour, the tube is 

 considerably longer and narrower in proportion, and the fruit 

 consists of a large fleshy drupe inclosing a putamen which is 

 quite indehiscent. In Franciscea the flowers are always of a 

 purplish or violet colour, with a much shorter tube and an 

 oblique rotate border : the fruit is generally capsular, and rarely 

 somewhat baccate ; but when this occurs, I have noticed in the 

 dried specimens, that as the fleshy sarcocarp covering the puta- 

 men dries into the form of a coriaceous integument, both split 

 into four divisions at the apex, in a valvular form, as in the cap- 

 sular species. In Brunsfelsia the style is very long and slender, 

 quite erect at the apex, and terminated by a small clavate stigma 

 which is bilobed, its equal concave lobes being filled with a ball 

 of grumous matter. In Franciscea the style is considerably en- 

 larged and incurved at its summit, which is terminated by a 

 much larger bilobed gaping stigma, the lower lobe being some- 

 what smaller, and it exhibits in its sinus a globe of viscous mat- 

 ter, seen only in the living state. In Heteranthia the style is 

 far exserted, and is terminated at its slender and somewhat in- 

 curved apex by an almost obsolete fistulose stigma. The spe- 

 cies of Brunsfelsia attain the size of large trees, 20 feet in height, 

 while on the contrary those of Franciscea do not exceed the size 

 of bushes, which are seldom more than 3 or 4 feet high. Hete- 

 ranthia, on the other hand, is a small repent perennial plant, 

 with short ascending branches, terminated by a racemose inflo- 

 rescence. 



