164 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
and as the reasoning he employed on that occasion is highly 
applauded, to the exclusion of my inferences, in a criticism in 
the ‘ Kew Journ. Bot.^ vii. 139, it is necessary to test the value 
of the evidence on both sides. In doing this, I gladly express 
my full appreciation of the high merits of the distinguished 
Professor, which are so deservedly eulogized in the review just 
mentioned : my object in this is not to arraign the remarks of 
one so pre-eminent for the clearness of his views and the general 
accuracy of his observations, but to defend the evidence I had 
previously endeavoured to establish, the truth of which he has 
denied. I will therefore confine myself solely to the facts thus 
impugned in his ‘ Notes on Vavaa,’ respecting the co-ordinal rela- 
tion of Styrax and Syrnplocos. The grounds upon which this 
relationship is there defended ai’e reducible to six heads* : — 
1. It is urged, that, as an inferior ovary is common to both 
groups, this character affords no distinguishing mark of the 
Sijmplocacea. 2. The aestivation of the corolla establishes no 
ground of distinction, because it is imbricated in both cases. 
3. It is not true, as I had stated, that the stamens are uniserial 
in Styraccee and pluriserial in Symplocacece. 4. The feature I 
had implied, of the anthers being linear and doi’sally attached to 
broad filaments for nearly their whole length in Styracea, and as 
being small, rounded, without connective, and slenderly affixed 
on the thread-like apex of the filament in Symplocacea, is not 
tenable. 5. The character given by me, that the Stijracece may 
be distinguished from the other group by a superior ovary with 
three incomplete dissepiments, and a central placentation free 
from the style, cannot be maintained. 6. It is not correct to 
affii’m that the fruit in Styracea contains a solitary one-celled 
putamen with a single erect seed. I will consider these objec- 
tions in succession, solely in reference to facts, premising, how- 
ever, that the differential ordinal characters, as sketched by me 
in the ‘Vegetable Kingdom,’ in that early stage of the inquiiy, 
were derived mostly from my observations upon Strigilia and 
Pampkilia. I had- not then seen Halesia, which, from the very 
discrepant characters of authors, appeared to me a doubtful genus 
of the order, so much so as to have been made the type of a 
distinct family by Don and Endlicher. Now that I am acquainted 
with the singular structure of that genus, my previous ordinal 
character will require modification; but this structure, instead 
of militating against my views, only tends to widen much further 
the differences existing between the two families under con- 
sideration. 
Upon the first objection I will observe that, although it be 
true that the tubular and entirely free calyx which belongs to 
* Mem. Amer. Acad. 2nd ser. v. 333, in a note. 
