252 G. Bentham’s Anniversary Address 
fragmentary traces; and the surviving branchlets themselves 
will be most irregularly placed. Here we should see thousands 
crowded into compact patches definitely circumscribed at every 
point (Composite, Orchidexe, Graminez, &c.) ; there we should 
meet with enormous gaps, either quite unoccupied or a few soli- 
tary branchlets or small clusters isolated in the middle (Moringa, 
Aristolochia, Nepenthes, &c.). In other parts, again, irregular 
masses may be more or less connected by loosely scattered 
branchlets or clusters, obliterating all boundaries we might be 
disposed to assign to them (many of the bicarpellary gamopeta- 
lous orders, the several curvembryous orders, &c.). In the im- 
aginary construction of such a tree, all we can do is to map out 
the summit as it were from a bird’s-eye view, and under each 
cluster, or cluster of clusters, to place as the common trunk an 
imaginary type of a genus, order, or class, according to the 
depth to which we go. If we believe that this type, or original 
trunk branch, is exactly represented by (has descended un- 
changed to) one of the present branchlets, we place it imme- 
diately under that branchlet, as having been directly continu- 
ous with it, and regard the remainder of the cluster as the 
persistent summits of lateral offsets. If we consider that the 
direct trunk-race of a cluster has become extinct in its precise 
form, and has left descendents only from its branches, we place 
it under one of the gaps in the cluster or under a vacancy out- 
side the cluster, according to the conjectures we may think the 
most plausible, as derived from the relative structures, ge 
graphical relations, &c., of the present branchlets = other 
j uch cir- 
inconclusive ; and the assistance we can derive from the ge 
logical record is so exceedingly slight, especially if we descend 
: a ta 
li 
discover ed, either among geological remains or still lingering 
some unexplored region of the globe, we may ye 
gradually to obtain a fair outline of the lost ramifications of 
our dicotyledonous tree, provided we are always on our 
against the common error of treating plausible conjectures ® 
established facts.” 
oe 
DP) Ree 7 = 7 ns, i e., between 
leaves and stems.— There is no doctrine better established, 2° 
as distin- 
guished from the axis—a doctrine originally sketched out by 
