137 
natural Family of Plants called Compositce. 
points to this extremity cannot in strict propriety be described as 
directed towards the umbilicus. M. Cassini has not noticed the 
direction of the radicle ; either from supposing it constantly con¬ 
nected with that of the ovulum, or, which is more probable, from 
not having ascertained it. 
These distinctive characters maybe considered as fully sufficient 
to authorize the separation of Boopidece from Compositae; yet the 
same differences exist between certain genera referred and really 
belonging to Rubiaccce and the principal part of that order. 
There are, however, three other characters unnoticed by M. Cas¬ 
sini, which distinguish the flowers of Boopidece from the herma¬ 
phrodite flowers of the whole of Compositae; namely, the accretion 
of the base of the style with the tube of the corolla; the absence of 
the epigynous disk or ncctarium ; and the longitudinal subdivision 
of each cell of the anthera by a “receptaculum pollinis,” as in most 
other families, and of which, indeed, there seems to be the rudiment 
in the syngenesious genus Petrobium, described in the preceding 
paper. 
In the partial cohesion of the antherae, in which they resemble 
Jasione , they certainly differ from all known Compositae : but as 
in certain Compositae the antherae are very slightly connected or 
entirely distinct;—this, though a remarkable circumstance, can 
hardly be employed as a distinguishing character. 
The principal characters in which Boopidece differ from the 
greater part, though not from the whole of Compositae, are the 
corolla being continuous, or not jointed, with the ovarium; the 
antherae having no membranaceous appendix at top ; and the un¬ 
divided stigma. 
Boopidece c\ iffer from Dipsacece in the vascular structure and val¬ 
vular aestivation of corolla; in the aestivation, insertion, and con- 
vol. XII. 
T 
nexion 
