166 Notes on Indian Botany, 



the characters by which they are held together as of much 

 greater weight than the solitary one, the adherent ovary, on 

 the strength of which it is proposed to separate them so 

 widely. 



After the fullest consideration, I confess I am still dis- 

 posed to coincide with the majority, because I cannot but 

 esteem strong family likeness an element not to be over- 

 looked in the determination of affinities, however difficult to 

 define : because, in this instance, I attach less value to Hypo- 

 gynous and Epigynous insertion of the stamens than Dr. 

 Lindley has accorded : and because the proposed alteration 

 deprives us in a twofold way, of the aid in the determina- 

 tion of affinities, derived from family likeness ; first, by 

 taking Cranberries from an alliance in which it is strikingly 

 present, and secondly, by placing them in another in which 

 it is to the full as strikingly absent, thereby doing violence 

 to both. 



But for the present, leaving habit out of consideration, we 

 find that Vacciniaceae associate with Ericaceae in two of the 

 three prominent points adduced by Lindley, as indicating 

 their affinity with the Cinchonads, both have monopetalous 

 flowers, and both have albuminous seed, and both depart 

 from the Cinchonads in their alternate exstipulate leaves and 

 campanulate corolla ; anthers opening by pores, and usually 

 furnished with appendages, none of which, but as rare ex- 

 ceptions to the general rule, are met with in the Cinchonal 

 alliance : add to these readily definable characters, the 

 equally, easily appreciable, though not so easily described 

 one of habit, and we have, I think, such a preponderance of 

 characters on one side, as greatly to outweigh those addu- 

 ced on the other, which indeed is limited to the adherence 

 of the ovary. It cannot be questioned that that is an im- 

 portant character, but not such as to set aside several others 

 standing opposed, each of equal or even greater weight. 

 Then as to their representative relations, they are of about 



