40 GENEEAL REMARKS ON THE 



three lacinise usually forming the lower lip has a single 

 nerve passing through its axis ; the upper lip is therefore 

 to be considered, even when entire, as made up of two con- 

 fluent laciniEe ; and if this test be allowed to be conclusive, 

 and applied to the corolla of those genera of Labiate in 

 which it is supposed to be resupinate, the opinion will be 

 found to be erroneous. 



MYOPORINiE.^ The principal characters in the fructi- 

 fication of this order, by which it is distinguished from Ver- 

 benacese, are the presence of albumen in the ripe seed, 

 and the direction of the embryo, whose radicule always 

 points towards the apex of the fruit. The first of these 

 characters, however, is not absolute, and neither of them can 

 667] be ascertained before the ripening of the seed ; for pre- 

 vious to the complete development of the embryo the fluid 

 albumen or liquor amnios equally exists in both orders ; 

 and although all the genera of Verbenacese have an embryo 

 whose radicule points towards the base of the fruit, yet 

 many of them have pendulous seeds, and consequently 

 a radicule remote from the umbilicus. Hence Avicennia,^ 

 which I formerly annexed to Myoporinse, should be re- 

 stored to Verbenacese, with which also it much better agrees 

 in habit. 



MyoporineB, with the exception of Bontia, a genus of 

 equinoctial America, and of two species of Myoporum 

 found in the Sandwich Islands, has hitherto been observed 

 only in the southern hemisphere, and yet neither in South 

 Africa nor in South America beyond the tropic. Its maxi- 

 mum is evidently in the principal parallel of Terra Australia, 

 in every part of which it exists ; in the more southern parts 

 of New Holland, and even in Van Diemen's Island it is 

 more frequent than within the tropic. The genus Myo- 

 porum is also found in New Zealand, Norfolk Island, New 

 Caledonia, and the Society Islands. 



PROTEACEtE.^ I have formerly* ofi"ered several obser- 



' Frodr.fi. Nov. Eoll. 514. = Proir.fi. Nov. HoU. 518. 



^ Ibid. * Lin. soc. transact. 10, jo. 15. 



