CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 387 



would do ; and if it were so, it would be still a stamineous 

 flower, even according to his own sense of stamineous, if 

 the petala become the involucra seminis, as he says they 

 do for the most part in this. In his ' Elem. Bot." he has 

 given it also a rosaceous flower, but wanting a calyx, 

 whose pistil becomes a round and membranaceous fruit, 

 in which one seed is contained spira3 in modum convo- 

 lutum ; but neither of these characters agrees to this 

 plant, for I found it constantly as above described. So 

 that Tournefort must either be very far mistaken, or the 

 plant must vary in different places. 



Kali minus album semine splendente, C. B. P. \_Che7io- 

 podium maritimum, Linn. ; Schoberia mariiima, C. A. Mey .], 

 has a stamineous flower, whose calyx consists of five leaves, 

 and together compose a round capsule, in which one round 

 and shining seed is contained. You have placed it amongst 

 the Blifa, but it does not agree to Tournefort's character 

 of the Blita. He has excluded it from the Kali species, 

 but where he has reduced it I cannot find. 



Lidien vul(j . \J\Iarchantia poli/morpha,'Lmw.~\ I could 

 never observe it to have any flower, but there arises from 

 the middle of the leaves a long, slender, and white pedi- 

 cule, aliquando ad digiti unius longitudinem assurgens. 

 It is hollow and pellucid ; on the top of which there is a 

 round black head, or capside, fitted with a farinaceous 

 and greenish substance, quod revera locum seminis sup- 

 plet., or the seed itself, as observed by Tournefort with 

 the help of a microscope, and is subrotunda. This capsidc 

 being so very slender, soon opens or breaks by the heat 

 of the sun, and then it appears of the figm-e as in Tourne- 

 fort's character, but is constantly round (ante rupturam), 

 so that it would appear Tournefort has not observed them 

 in all seasons ; for early in the spring it is easy to observe 

 them as above described, but they are not able to endure 

 heat, and so quickly vanish. 



Alsi'iie rotimdifol. seu Portulaca aq. minima serpijllifol. 

 [Pi'plis portida, Lhm.] This plant Avas past the flower ; 

 the pistil of it becomes a round capsule opening into two 



