PLURALITY OF COTYLEDONS IN GENUS PERSOONIA. I15 
The monera of Haeckel are not included in this scheme, but 
as these can hardly be considered, without further investigation, 
to form a natural assemblage, since they are united upon a 
single negative character, I think it best to leave them out of 
consideration for the present. 
PRURALITY -OF COTYLEDONS IN-> THE 
GENUS PERSOONIA. 
ne 
BY BARON F. VON MUELLER, K.C.M.G., M.D., F.R.S. 
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The foundation to comparative carpology as a branch of 
botanic science was laid by Dr. Joseph Gaertner in his ever- 
memorable work, “ De Fructibus et Seminibus Plantarum,” 1788- 
1791. In continuing these important literary labours of his 
' illustrious parent, Dr. Carl Gaertner gave in his “ Supplementum 
Carpologiz, Centuria Secunda,’ anno 1807, at pages 219 and 
220, and on plate 220, the description of a new genus, which, on 
account of an embryo with five cotyledons, he named Penta- 
dactylon; but Mr. Bentham was able, througk comparison with 
the collections of Sir Joseph Banks, from whom the younger 
Gaertner had his material, to identify the Pentadactylon angusti- 
folium with Persoonia linearis, of Andrews. Independently, long 
since I had established for another species of Persoonia—namely, 
P. Chamaepeuce, an embryo with six cotyledonar segments 
(Plants of Victoria, plate LXIX., then considered identical with 
P. Caleyi). But although already R. Brown, in 1809 (Transac- 
tions of the Linn. Soc., X., 160), indicated for the genus “ cotyle- 
dons saepius plures” (reiterated by Baillon “ Histoire des Plantes,” 
Proteacées 396); and although Meissner, when describing all species 
known in 1856 (Decandolle, prodr. XIV., 329-343), took notice 
in the generic character also of the frequent occurrence of 
3-5 cotyledons, yet the extent of this kind of aberration has never 
yet been traced through the very many specific forms of the 
genus. This investigation, long ago intended by me, but post- 
poned for want of sufficient material, has been carried out to 
some extent now. It possesses particular interest, not only for 
specific diagnosis, but also for its general application to morpho- 
logy, in as much as a pleio-cotyledonar embryo is known only 
in very few genera beyond those of the Conifer. Thus in Pinus 
the embryo segments number from 3-15 ; in Callitris, Biotia and 
Juniperus, 2-3; in Cupressus, 2-4; in Taxodium, 4-9 (vide 
Parlatore in D.C., prodr. XVI., part II., anno 1864). The Lor- 
anthaceze, so closely allied to the Proteaceew—if we assume the 
floral envelope of the latter, as also in Santalacez, to be petaloid, 
