ON THE MYRTLE TRIBE OF PLANTS. 
is more bardy, or at least more accommodating to the treatment usually bestowed 
on it by our cultivators. 
3. Psidium, the Guava, This is a most interesting- family ; and the purple- 
fruited, or Cattley's guava is, perhaps, the most perfect and graceful evergreen that 
au amateur of plants ought to desire, or even can possess ; it may be raised from 
seeds, by cuttings, or by layers ; grows freely, fruits early, and yields eatable berries 
as large as a prize gooseberry, resembling, with the exception of the colour, a small 
orange. Any climate in greenhouse, vinery, or stove, not reduced below 45 
degrees of Fahrenheit, suits it well ; and, in addition to its many excellencies, the 
fruit is calculated to furnish a delicious guava jelly; in its flowers, it is obviously a 
true member of MyrtacecE, 
Punicay the pomegranate, formed one of the eleven genera ; but it has recently 
been removed, and now constitutes an order by itself, Granatece. 
In the second tribe, Capsulares, we perceived those ornaments of the conserva- 
tory Metrosideros, Melaleuca, und Calothamnus, with their beautiful tufty 
pencils of gorgeously-tinted stamens ; the first of these belongs to Icosandria 
Monogynia ; the two others to Polyadelplda Polyandria ; the pretty small-leaved 
Leptospermums, hardy conservatory or greenhouse evergreens, are more nearly 
allied to the true Myrti. 
Thus far we have followed the guidance of the Encyclopaedia ; but if we turn 
to the catalogue of the Hortus Britannicus of 1832, we perceive that MyrtacecE 
has become the Ixxxivth natural order, and, therefore, that no fewer than twenty 
three intermediate orders have been added to the list. A great change also has 
been effected in the arrangement of the order; which no longer consists of three 
tribes, distinguished by the structure of the seed-vessels, but six tribes founded 
upon other bases, thus: 1, Chamcelanchiece denotes the dwarfish angular figure of 
the plants ; 2. Leptospermice, the similitude of the genera to their type Lepto- 
spermum ; 3. Myrtece, the same, &c. &c. &c. 
Not to be more prolix, we merely add that the list of the orders in the first 
grand division was, in 1832, increased to two hundred and ten; and these are 
divided and sub-divided into tribes, sub-tribes, and the like, to an extent that makes 
the memory to quail. As new plants flow in, new orders must be, and are, 
originated to meet the occasion ; till we are almost tempted to exclaim with 
Macbeth, 
What ! will the line stretch out the crack of doom ? " 
These eternal alterations, changes of positions, and new creations, form the 
great blot of the system : a stumbling block is thereby thrown in the way of the 
inquiring many, who cannot but perceive that the twenty-four simple classes of 
Linnaeus, with all their imperfections, furnish a locality for every new introduction, 
almost if not entirely, without exception, to which it can appropriately be referred, 
without violence to the characters of its inflorescence. 
We arrive, then, at the following inevitable conclusion ; that the Linnsean 
system is a simple, well regulated whole, perfect in its structure, and easily available ; 
