mitted. The divisions or tribes proposed by M. Cassini, in 
his valuable dissertations upon this family, appear to be the 
most natural, though as yet they have not been very sa- 
tisfactorily defined.” 
- © Baron Humboldt has stated, that Composite form one 
sixth of the Phenogamous plants * within the tropics, and 
that their proportion gradually decreases in the higher lati- 
tudes, until in the frigid zones it is reduced to one thir- | 
teenth. But in the Herbarium from Congo Composite form 
only one twenty-third, and both in Smeathman’s collection 
from Sierra Leone, and in Dr. Roxburgh’s Flora Indica, a still 
smaller part, of the Phenogamous plants. In the northern 
part of New Holland they form about one sixteenth; and in 
a manuscript catalogue of plants of equinoctial America, in 
the library of Sir Joseph Banks, they are nearly in the same 
proportion.” 
« In estimating the comparative value of these different 
materials, I may, in the first place, observe that though the 
herbarium from Congo was collected in the dry season of the 
country, there is no reason to suppose on that account that 
the proportion of this family of plants, in particular, is ma- 
terially or even in any degree diminished, nor can this ob- 
jection be stated to the Sierra Leone collection, in which its 
relative number is still smaller.” 
“To the Composite in Dr. Roxburgh’s Flora Indica, how- 
ever, a considerable addition ought, no doubt, to be made; 
partly on the ground of his having apparently paid less at- 
tention to them himself, and still more because his cor- 
respondents, whose contributions form a considerable part 
of the Flora, have evidently in a great measure neglected 
them. This addition being made, the proportion of Compo- 
site: in India would not differ very materially from that of 
the north coast of New Holland, according to my own col- 
lection, which I consider as having been formed in more fa- 
-vourable circumstances, and as probably giving an approxi- 
mation of the true proportions in the country examined. _ 
Baron Humboldt’s herbarium, though absolutely greater than - 
any of the others referred to on this subject, is yet, with rela- 
* That portion of the vegetable creation where the stamen and pistillum 
are manifest, as distinguished from Cryptogamous and Agamous plants, 
where the existence of these parts is either only presumed from analogy, as 
in the first of the two, or denied altogether, as in the Jatter. 
