MELASTOMACE^. 277 
Mr Lambert has paid particular attention to this order, 
and his herbarium now contains undoubtedly the finest 
collection of Melastomacese in Europe. Another, and 
certainly the greatest difficulty, attending the study of this 
order, is the want of striking, discriminating characters. 
This circumstance has no doubt occasioned the union of a 
vast number of species to Melastoma and Rheccia, which 
are generically distinct from the plants on which Linn^us 
founded these two genera, in the first edition of his Getiera 
Flantarum. His short imperfect characters, which chiefly 
depended on number, might equally apply to all the plants 
of this family. An attentive examination, howe\^er, of these 
plants shews that we need not despair of finding sufiicient 
difl*erential marks. The more free communication with the 
Islands and Continent of the New World, and the re- 
searches of various naturalists in these regions, had in- 
creased the number of species to such an extent, that many 
botanists really felt the necessity of dividing them into vari-r 
ous genera. Among the successful labourers in this depart- 
ment, we may mention in an especial manner Aublet, 
JussiEu, Ruiz and Pavon. Although Gartner does 
not appear to have given any particular attention to this 
subject, yet nevertheless to him we are indebted for hav.- 
ing been the first to bring into the descriptions, the import- 
ant aid of characters deduced from the structure of the 
seeds and form of the embryo. The labours of these na- 
turalists, however, do not seem to have been rightly esti- 
mated, nor to have had any important influence on the 
subsequent labours of other botanists. M. Bon pl and, 
who, of all others, might have been considered as the most 
likely to have been able to give importance to the divisions 
proposed by Aublet, Jussieu, Ruiz and Pavon, and to 
the characters illustrated by Gartner, has adhered to the 
old division ; and it is a remarkable fact, that, in his recent 
