370 



Extracts from Br. Lindley's new work on the Vegetable Kingdom, 

 adverting to the discoveries of the late William Griffith, Esq. 



PHILESIACE^. 



217. In the last edition of this work I regarded these plants 

 as forming a part of the Roxburgh- work ; but the discovery by Mr. 

 Griffith, that the carpel of these plants is quite simple, and a further 

 consideration of the parietal placentae, orthotropal ovules, and hex- 

 amerous flowers of the Philesiads, has decided me to separate them, 

 in the belief that recuits may be hereafter found for them. Very 

 little is known about them at present; no one has analysed their 

 seeds, and it is even doubtful whether the two genera here brought 

 together are so closely allied as is supposed. For my part I only 

 know the ovules of Philesia. Lapageria looks like a Smilax bearing 

 the flowers of a Bomarea. 



ROXBURGHIACEiE. 



219. I, however, formerly regarded it as more nearly allied to Arads 

 than to anything else, and Mr. Griffith has so far agreed with that 

 opinion as to consider it certainly one of the class of which Arads 

 are the type; in which he has apparently been influenced by the 

 discovery of a slit on one side of the embryo. But this character has 

 lost its value ever since the discovery by Adr. de Tussien, that a 

 slit embryo is found very generally in Endogens ; and a diclinous 

 spadiceous inflorescence is indispensable to Arads ; so that this view 

 of the affinity of Roxburghia can hardly be maintained. It would 

 rather appear to be the type of an order for recuits to which we 

 have still to look. In the meanwhile it may be looked upon as a 

 tendency towards Arals on the part of Dictyogens. Roxburghia 

 is said to have stems 100 fathoms long. Mr. Griffith regards the 

 pistil as consisting, beyond all doubt, of one carpel only, as " is indi- 

 cated by the obliquity of the ovary." 



GNETACEiE. 



232 and 233. Within which is a thinner envelope, through which 

 passes a tubular projection fringed at the point, and within these lies 

 a nucleus, as is represented in the accompanying figure of the young 



