164 Notes on Indian Botany. 



on account of the talent and ingenuity with which they are 

 brought forward and supported. 



Before entering on the consideration of the affinities of 

 Vacciniacea, as these are received by Botanists generally, 

 including Dr. Lindley himself, up to the date of his last 

 publication, and as now placed in the ' Vegetable Kingdom,' 

 it is necessary very briefly to advert to the principles of 

 Jussieu's arrangement, whose original views, but with great 

 modification, Dr. Lindley now adopts, justly considering him 

 " beyond all comparison the greatest of Botanical Systema- 

 tists." 



Jussieu founded his primary divisions of Dicotyledonous 

 plants on the assumed degree of perfection of the flowers, 

 as apetalous, monopetalous, polypetalous, diclinous : the se- 

 condary divisions or classes on the relative position of the 

 stamens to the ovary as Epigynous, Perigynous, and Hypo- 

 gynous. According to this arrangement, if rigidly adhered 

 to, Vacciniaceae must have been referred to his 11th class 

 Monopetalae Epigynae, in place of which, viewing them as 

 inseparable from his order Ericeae, he placed them as an 

 Epigynous suborder of that family, in his 9th class Mono- 

 petalae Perigynae. 



As already remarked, all subsequent Botanists have, un- 

 til the publication of the * Vegetable Kingdom,' adopted 

 his arrangement, merely excluding some obviously misplaced 

 genera, with the exception of elevating his suborder to the 

 rank of an independent order, but still placing them side 

 by side, esteeming the difference of the position of the 

 stamens and ovary of less moment than the form of the 

 corolla, the marked peculiarity of the anthers, and similarity 

 of structure of ovary and seed found to exist in the two 

 orders. 



Dr. Lindley, by the adoption of a more rigid application 

 of Jussieu's principles of arrangement than the founder 

 deemed advisable, has now, however, been induced to take 



