Notes on Indian Botany, 151 



into two lips, 2-3-cleft, and is shorter than the corolla, while in 

 Nicolsonia, it is divided to the very base into 5 hairy seg- 

 ments, and is longer than the corolla. Decandolle further 

 assigns a several jointed legume, but this does not seem suffi- 

 ciently constant, to admit of more than secondary value being 

 attached to it as a generic distinction, as the number varies, 

 and is even, in an instance given in Decandolle^ s figure, 

 reduced to one. This portion of the generic character will 

 for the future therefore, require to be modified, to admit 

 our species, which seems uniformly to have a single jointed 

 pod, and an ovary with usually, if not always, a solitary ovule. 

 The same thing, however, happens in other genera, especially 

 Indigofera, and is provided for by giving a little latitude to 

 that part of the character, by which that very natural genus 

 is kept together, which might easily be broken up into several 

 artificial genera : the besetting sin by the way of some of those 

 modern naturalists, who, looking upon our natural orders and 

 our genera as mere human contrivances in the construction 

 of which nature has no hand, seem to think it meritorious to 

 make as many orders and genera as they can find artificial 

 distinctions for, too often without, in the first instance, 

 determining the value, as regards constancy of the charac- 

 ters they employ, in this unphilsophical proceeding. But 

 quitting such discussions as irrelevant, and leaving each la- 

 bourer in the field to follow the bent of his own inclinations, 

 I shall at once proceed to describe my new Nicolsonia, first 

 introducing the slight modification into the generic character, 

 required for its admission into the genus. 



"Nicolsonia, D. C. calyx, 5-parted, segments subu- 

 late, bearded. Corolla shorter than the calyx. Legume 

 straight, compressed, one or several jointed. Leaves pinnately 

 trifoliate or simple, by the abortion of the lateral leaflets : 

 flowers purple." The above is copied from G. Don^s character 

 (Gard. Dictionary) with merely the addition of the word one 



