TOURNEFOR'TIA HELIOTROPIOIDES. 
HELIOTROPE-LIKE TOURNEFORTIA. 
Class. Order. 
PENTANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order. 
BORAGINEJE. 
Native of 
Height. 
Flowers in 
Duration. 
Introduced 
Buenos Ayr. 
2 feet. 
May, Aug. 
Perennial. 
in 1829. 
No. 483. 
Joseph P. de Tournefort, in honour of whom this 
genus was named, was a French botanist of eminent 
talent. He was born in 1656; and his method of 
botanical classification was esteemed as far superior 
to any that had preceded it. He, however, was stren- 
uously opposed to the sexes of plants. The farina, 
which we now know possesses important functions, 
he even conceived to be merely excrementitious. 
At this period, it should be noticed, a vague notion 
only of the functions of the parts of fructification 
existed. Botanists, up to the sixteenth century, had 
made no advance in knowledge on this subject, 
from the days of the ancient Greeks — Herodotus 
and Theophrastus. It remained for our own coun- 
tryman, Grew, to enlighten the world on the sub- 
ject of vegetable reproduction. He applied his at- 
tention and his microscope to the mysteries of veg- 
etation, and exhibited to the world, its economy as 
connected with the functions of the parts of fructi- 
fication. although he had no actual demonstration 
of the fact, he was fully convinced that the farina or 
pollen was not a useless product, but essential to the 
fertilization of the seeds. 
