with a claim to rank in the genus. The flower is more 
strictly tubular, and proportionately longer, than in that 
group ; the label falls short of the outer limb, instead of ex- 
ceeding it; the anther is sessile, instead of being elevated 
by a filament; the inflorescence terminates a lateral scape, 
which is enveloped by sphacelately membranous sheaths, 
instead of a central-stem enveloped by a green foliage. In 
this last circumstance, however, the plant probably coin- 
cides with Aupinia occidentalis, and the second section of 
- the genus as arranged in the Flora Indica of Roxburgh. ° 
But we have fixed its present place, rather from an agree-. 
ment in respect to the technical character of Auprnia, than 
from a conviction of the species being a good member of 
the group; and willingly avail ourselves of a colourable pre- 
tence for not founding a genus with a new name upon an 
only species, whose affinities in the general system are less 
intimately known to us than to others of our cotemporaries, 
that happen to have made them their particular study. In 
this way we think we proceed with a juster regard to the 
interests of natural history, than by adding to the crude 
and desultory genera bandied about in the lucubrations of 
so many of its votaries. j 
It has been already observed, and we think in more than 
one page of this work, that sound genera are the offspring 
of discretion and true criticism. Fancy may suggest that 
nature has traced with a wavering hand the fluctuating line 
which appears to bound these groups to-day to set them free 
to-morrow; but it is evident that their completion at least 
is left to the ingenuity of man; while reason and experience’ 
teach us, that she has drawn with steady purpose the immu- 
table boundaries that comprise the species, the basis of her 
rule. ¥ 
We know that some ingenious persons say, there are not 
even species; that organized existences are intercurrent, 
without stated or essential limits. To the truth of their as- 
sertion they bring, however, no other evidence, than that in 
their wisdom they have not found such limits; and seem 
more ready to presume an anomaly in the economy of 
nature, than to suspect a failure in their own sagacity. 
From such assumption, where hybrid procreation is ad- 
mitted, it would necessarily follow there was no check 
to the intermixture of proximate existences, and that the 
results were transmissable to all futurity. For if bounds 
