Mr. J. Miers on the genus Brunsfelsia. 247 



XXIII. — Contributions to the Botany of South America. 

 By John Miers, Esq., F.R.S., F.L.S. 



[Continued from p. 210.] 



Brunsfelsia. 



Upon a previous occasion (huj. op. iii. 176) I suggested the pro- 

 priety of again separating Franciscea from Brunsfelsia, which 

 genera had been united into one, by Mr. Bentham, in his ex- 

 cellent Monograph on the Scrophulariacece (DeCand. Prodr. x. 

 198). With the view of carrying out this suggestion, I now offer 

 at greater length the observations on which that recommenda- 

 tion was founded. Although there exists a remarkable similarity 

 in several of their respective features, many essential points of 

 distinction may be observed between them : thus, in Brunsfelsia, 

 independently of the constant difference in the yellow colour of 

 the corolla, its tube is always comparatively of much greater 

 length, often ten or twelve times that of the calyx, and in all 

 cases is wider and somewhat funnel-shaped in the mouth ; the 

 border too is much broader, of more fleshy consistence, more 

 deeply and unequally lobed, the segments being more or less 

 crenated and crispate and somewhat reflexed; while in Franciscea 

 the tube is seldom more than three or four times the length of 

 the calyx, and though suddenly a little inflated above, is again 

 much contracted in the mouth, presenting a conspicuous and 

 prominent rim around its very narrow orifice ; the colour of the 

 corolla is constantly of a violet or bluish hue, more or less intense ; 

 the lobes of the border are quite flat and rotate, and not at all 

 crispate. The anthers in Brunsfelsia are at first 2-celled, with 

 the confluent lobes affixed transversely, thus forming an oblong 

 body grooved across, four times broader than long; this bursts 

 by the upper marginal suture assuming the appearance of being 

 unilocular : it takes a vertical position by the inflection of the 

 filament. 



In Franciscea, the anther, on the contrary, is always distinctly 

 1 -lobed, 1 -celled, almost circular and reniform, fixed at its sinus 

 upon the apex of the filament ; it is 2-valved, bursting by a nearly 

 marginal hippocrepiform line, and exhibits in the bottom of the 

 cell a fleshy prominent globular receptacle, to which the pollen- 

 grains are attached, as in Verbascum. The stigma is similarly 

 constructed in both genera, as is also the ovarium. In Fran- 

 ciscea the fruit is an oval capsule, inclosed within the persistent 

 calyx, and covered with a thick coriaceous pericarp, which in one 

 species almost prevents its dehiscence : in such instances the su- 

 tural line is always evident, and by pressure the fruit bursts by 



