Refugium Botanicum.] [Irebruary, 1869. 
Natural Order CRASSULACER. 
Genus CoryLepon, Linn. 
Calyx quinquepartitus, corolle tubo sequalis vel brevior. Corolle tubus 
cylindricus, urceolatus vel brevis, teres vel pentagonus, limbi lobis 
parvis vel elongatis patentibus. Stamina 10, rarissime 5, prope 
basin corolle pleraque inserta, filamentis elongatis filiformibus, 
antheris oblongis inclusis vel paullulum exsertis. Squamule hypo- 
gynee lineares, oblong vel quadrate. Ovarii carpella 5, libera, in 
stylos filiformes vel subulatos interdum exsertos attenuata, stig- 
matis oblique capitellatis. Ovula in carpellis indefinita. YFolliculi 
polyspermi. Herbe vel subfrutices ramose vel subscapigere, ha- 
bitu valde varize. Folia opposita vel alterna, sessilia vel petiolata, 
seepe crassissime carnosa, in paucis peltata, sparsa vel rosulata. 
Flores erecti vel penduli, parvi vel ampli, spicati, racemosi, cymosi 
vel paniculati. Corolle lobi eestivatione torti. — Benth. et Hook. 
Gen. Plant. 1. p. 659. 
It is in the illustration of those tribes of plants of which dried 
specimens cannot be effectually preserved, or in which the dis- 
tinctive characters are lost in herbarium examples, that we hope 
to make our little publication most useful, especially as it 
naturally happens not unfrequently, in groups or genera of this 
character, that the horticulturists have outrun the botanists, and 
that plants which are well known amongst cultivators have never 
been named or scientifically described. Perhaps we can scarcely 
find anywhere a better illustration of this than in the American 
representatives of the genus Cotyledon, several of which are 
widely grown in gardens under the generic name of Echeveria. 
In the first place, let us explain why this name has no nghtful 
claim to be used as generic. In the ‘ Prodromus,’ De Candolle 
divided the Linnean genus Cotyledon into four, in one of which, 
Pistorinia, he placed a single species with the filaments adnate to 
the corolla-tube, and in the other three he attempted to separate 
generically the African and American from the Asiatic and 
European species, restricting the name Cotyledon to the plants of 
the Cape, and calling the New-World species Hcheveria, and the 
rest of those of the Old World Umbilicus. His characters of the 
three are as follows :— 
