294 OBSERVATIONS ON PLANTS 



It is particularly deserving of notice, that tlie common 

 position of the cells of the bilocular pericarpimTi with rela- 

 tion to the axis of the spike was well known to Csesalpinus, 

 who expressly distinguished Cruciferce from all other bilocular 

 families by their peculiarity in this respect, the loculi in 

 that family being placed right and left, instead of being 

 anterior and posterior.^ 



238] On the subject of the position of the Pistilla in the 

 other degrees of reduction from the symmetrical number, 

 I shall not at present enter. But in reference to Leguminosse 

 I may remark that it would be of importance to ascertain 

 the position of the Pistilla in the pentagynousMimosea, stated 

 to have been found in Brazil by M. Auguste De St. Hilaire.^ 

 Are these Pistilla placed opposite to the divisions of the 

 calyx, as might probably be inferred from the position of 

 the solitary Legumen in this class ? Or are we to expect 

 to find them opposite to the petals, which is the more usual 

 relation, and their actual place in Cnestis, though the 

 single ovarium of Connarus, a genus belonging to the 

 same family, is seated within the anterior division of the 

 calyx ? 



In the very few Leguminosse in Mdiich the division of the 

 flower is quaternary, namely, in certain species of .Mimosa, 

 the ovarium is still placed within one of the divisions of 

 the calyx. 



As to Moringa, which was originally referred to this 

 class from a mistaken notion of its absolutely belonging to 

 Guilandina, it is surely sufficiently different from all Legu- 

 minosas, not only in its compound unilocular ovarium with 

 three parietal placentae, but also in its simple unilocular 

 antheras ; and it appears to me to be an insulated genus, or 

 family {Moringea), whose place in the natu.ral series has 

 not yet been determined. 



CiESALPiNEJi;. Of this tribe, fovir species only occur in 

 the collection. One of these is Bauhinia nifescens of 

 Lamarck {Illustr. 829, /. 2) ; another is Cassia {Senna) 



' Casalp. de Plctniis, p. 327, cap. xv, et p. 351, cap. liii. 

 2 Be Cand, Lec/um. p. 52. 



