194 | NOTES ON COMMELINACES, - 
. Linneus knew three genera of Commelinacee, viz., Commelina 
A Callisia with 8-2 fertile stamens, Tradescantia with 6 5 fertile 
stamens. As new genera were founded in the order , those having 
8-2 fertile stamens were placed with Commelina, those with 6-5 
tribes Co 
8 
the ee nt would appear ee its characters) Callisia. Callisia, 
smaller barren stamens are sometimes polleniferous. Pollia (with 
six polleniferous stamens) is so like Aclisia (with three polleniferous, 
three barren), that some of the species of the one cannot dis- 
tinguished from the corresponding species of the other but by 
examining the stamens ; and the two genera have been, therefore, 
united by Bentham 
he genera proposed by Hasskarl Sai has largely studied the 
an a are founded in the main on fruit-characters, and are 
eminently natural; but they include ony small Geka of species, 
and are Sect ith what Bentham would call sections, or 
perhaps subsections ; ; nor, so far as I am aware, oo A gee put 
i 
fruit-characters I should by no means avoid exceptions and 
anomalies. Of this, one striking example occurs in Tinantia. All 
the true Tradescantias have two ovules (and normally two seeds) 
in each cell; Scheidweiler founded Tinantia (T. fugax) on the old 
Tradecantia erecta, which has a peculiar inflorescence, and thr 
(or more) ovules in each cell. The genus, so far, appears good 
and well limite ut there is a species (Tinantia Sprucei, C. B. 
Clarke) which ‘ee the inflorescence and habit exactly of Ti — 
Jugax, but the ovules are in none _ the examples more than tw 
in one cell. This species must, as Bentham has noted, be lua 
with Tinantia fugax, whether that fe retained as a genus or ap- 
pended (as in Kunth) as an anomalous section to Tradescantia. 
But, whatever be done with these plants, they will spoil any neat 
: up 
generic names and widening very much their characters. rie 
one of these plans would lead to confusion, and w ould, moreover, 
afflict nearly half the well-known species of the order with novel 
names. And when this had all been endured, I found that the 
