Various

“ Brown very candidly remarks, "instead of our being able to determine the order to which this genus belongs, Brunonia seems to afford no small proof of the limits of these groups being purely artificial; for does it not break down the barrier between Syngenesiæ and Campanulaceæ, Dipsaceæ and Globulariæ?" To this I most heartily subscribe; but if it leads to the overthrow of artificial definitions,
too confidently perhaps asserted for natural, may it not on the other hand guide us to some natural combinations, in helping us, for instance, to understand Corymbium? ”

“ On the west coast also, the species upon the whole are more similar to those of Africa than on the east, where they bear a somewhat greater resembland to the American portion of the order.
From the parallel of the mass, the order diminishes in both directions; but the diminution towards the north is probably more rapid on the east than on the west coast.
Within the tropic, on the east coast, no genera have hitherto been observed, which are not also found beyond it; unless that section of Grevillea, which I have called Cyclopteræ, be considered as a genus. ”

“ But with respect to this continent, it may be observed, that the number of species seems to be comparatively small, their organization but little varied; and further, that they have a
much greater affinity with those of New Holland than of Africa.
Of the botany of South Africa, scarce any thing is known, except that of the Cape of Good Hope, where this family occurs in the greatest abundance and variety; but even from the single fact of a genuine species of Protea having been found in Abyssinia by Bruce, it may be presumed, that in some degree they are also spread over this continent. ”

“ Now this is precisely the case with what I have above described as the inner perianthium of Brunonia, the outer one, of four leaves, not being analogous to any thing in Scabiosa, except the solitary scales or leaves in many species accompanying each flower. Can it be possible, therefore, that what I have taken for the inner is really the only perianthium in Brunonia, and exactly analogous to the outer one in Scabiosa? They both alike, in an indurated state, envelop and crown the ripe seed.
If habit were to be much insisted on, nothing can be stronger in my favour ”

“ These genera are Simsia, Conospermum, and Synaphea, all of which are most truly syngenesious; for not only do their antheræ firmly cohere together, but the corresponding lobes of these being, when considered separately, entirely open, are so applied to each other as to form but one cell, without a trace of any intermediate membrane. In Simsia the four antheræ are perfect, each consisting, as in the rest of the order, of two lobes, and therefore the whole before bursting constitute four cells. ”

“ The existence or absence of pubescence in the adult leaves cannot always be depended upon in distinguishing species; but the short tomentum, especially of their under surface, is of greater consequence than the spreading hairs. In the bracteæ more reliance may be placed on it, and in the different parts of the flower I have never hesitated to employ it in my specific characters. In the calyx I have even derived the greatest advantage in some difficult genera, especially Serruria, from attending to its differences in direction. ”

“ Here then I must premise, that the want of an opportunity of examining them in a proper state, and comparing them together, I take to have been the cause that what seem to me to be distinct species have been treated as varieties only, by men of eminence in the science of botany. ”

“ The most numerous genera are also the most widely diffused. Thus Grevillea, Hakea, Banksia, and Persoonia, extensive in species in the order in which they are here mentioned, are spread nearly in the same proportion; and they are likewise the only genera that have as yet been observed within the tropic.
Of such of the remaining genera, as consist of several species, some, as Isopogon, Petrophila, Conospermum, and Lambertia, are found in every part of the principal parallel, but hardly exist beyond it. ”

“ If we say analogy proves the lower half of this pretended calyx to be a receptacle, a similar mode of reasoning will prove the tube of Pancratium, Narcissus, Tulbaghia, and of my Brodiæa to be a receptable also, the limb only being the calyx, and the crown a corolla. If this be granted, the lower part of the corolla, as it is usually called, in Hemerocallis, Agapanthus, Amaryllis, Hyacinthus, &c.; even the claws of such few, if any, polypetalous liliaceæ as really have their stamens inserted there, must also be a receptacle, and the upper part a calyx; which is too paradoxical to be allowed. ”

“ For this reason too it ought not to be used in the capsular or drupaceous genera, in which indeed experience
proves it to be of no further moment than in distinguishing species.
Dr. Smith has given it as his opinion, that from the disposition of leaves in New Holland plants no conclusion can safely be drawn as to their genera. This remark however appears to me only applicable to certain families, or rather genera; for in many tribes the plants of that country are altogether as constant in their leaves as in any other part of the world. ”

“ Protea argentea of Linnæus is the most striking example among
the African species; and my friend Mr. Ferdinand Bauer has observed a similar tendency in Protea mellifera.
Among the New Holland species, Banksia speciosa is the sole instance, and even that only in certain circumstances, of this manner of growth.
The favourite station of Proteaceæ is in dry stony exposed places, especially near the shores, where they occur also, though more rarely, in loose sand. Scarcely any of them require shelter, and none a good soil. A few are found in wet bogs, or even in shallow pools of fresh water ”

“ Mr. Salisbury's rule, given in the first paper of our 8th volume, that the stamens are never inserted into the calyx, is one of the best upon the subject, yet not without its difficulties, some of which, from a love of truth alone, I beg leave to suggest. If we admit this rule in rosaceous flowers, and the more I have thought on the subject the more I feel disposed to do so, we can hardly allow it in Ribes, whose whole faded calyx, perfectly homogeneous and indivisible, sticks to the top of the fruit, retaining the withered petals and stamens, which are together inserted into its sides. ”

“ Rhopala, Xylomelum, and Lambertia are readily distinguished from Embothrium, Grevillea, and Hakea; and thus also Persoonia and Brabejum remarkably differ from Gevuina; while Bellendena differs from all others in having its stamina distinct from the calyx, affording however an indication of the real origin of these organs in the whole family.
The deviations from the usual structure of antheræ in this order are not many; but some of them are so singular a nature as to constitute the essential characters of the genera in which they take place. ”

“ But whatever their functions may be, great assistance may certainly be derived from their various modifications, in distinguishing genera. Their importance however in this respect, like that of all other parts, not only in this, but, as I apprehend, in every natural family, is very unequal, and in some cases seems to be entirely lost. Thus, in the genus Leucadendron as it is here constituted, they are wanting in several species, and in some I am inclined to think exist only in the males. ”

“ Genera consisting of one or very few species, and which exhibit generally the most remarkable deviations from the usual structure of the order, are the most local, and are found either in the principal parallel, or in the highest latitude. ”

“ In most of the regular-flowered genera they are four in number, and alternate with the leaves or laciniæ of the calyx. In these genera they are also generally in the form of succulent scales, distinct, or more rarely cohering at their base, and in a very few instances adhering to the calyx; but in Persoonia they are nearly round and fleshy, and in Bellendena, Symphionema, Simsia, Agastachya, Petrophila, and Isopogon, they are entirely wanting. ”

“ The name Protea, which originate with Linnæus, first occurs in the folio edition of his Systema Naturæ published in
1735; no generic characters are there given, but from the references to Boerhaave's figures it is evident that the genus is to be understood in the same extensive sense which he at length gave it in the second Mantissa. ”

“ Two genera only of this order are found in more than one continent: Rhopala, the most northern genus, which, though chiefly occurring in America, is to be met with also in Cochin-china and in the Malay Archipelago; and Embothrium, the most southern genus of any extent, is common to New Holland and America. ”

“ In 1745 Linnæus received the Herbarium of Herman, from which he composed his Flora Zeylanica: the fourth volume of this collection containing a mixture of Ceylon and African plants, the latter are not noticed in this work; but from an inspection of the Herbarium itself, now in the Banksian collection, it appears that he had added generic names to most of them: of Proteæ only three species exist in the volume, of which Protea conocarpa is one: of this there are on the same page to specimens, whose heads of flowers are separately pasted ”

“ Dryander, to a genus so nearly related to Banksia, from which indeed it differs chiefly in Inflorescence, but in that respect so widely as to be at once distinguishable: there is also something in the habit, especially in the leaves of the great number of species, by which, independent of the parts of fructification, the genus is pretty certainly indicated ”

“ The capsules of lampocarpus are by much the largest; those of acutiflorus are evidently larger, and more elongated, than those of obtusiflorus; (i. e.) the largest and strongest plant bears the smaller capsule.
The branches of the panicle in lampocarpus are sometimes but once divided, but frequently trice, and even thrice, as well as in the two other species. ”

“ He observes that, while the greater number grow irregularly scattered and mixed with each other, there are some which form considerable masses, or even extensive tracts, to the nearly absolute exclusion of other species. Of plants growing this in society, the greater number occur in the temperate zones ”

“ Sibthorp, as well as Clusius, to Sempervivum arboreum, with which the description of Dioscorides, more full than usual, most admirably agrees, and not at all with the tectorum. The 2d, Αειζωον το μικςον, or Sempervivum minus, was taken by Matthiolus for Sedum album, and by Dr. Sibthorp, not without much doubt, for Sempervivum hirtum; but I have no scruple at all in referring it to my present Sedum ochroleucum, a plant probably not known to Matthiolus. Dioscorides says "it grows on walls, stones and banks, as well as about shady enclosures. ”

“ The utility of ascertaining the internal condition of the ovarium before fœcundation will hardly be called in question, now that the immortal works of Gærtner and Jussieu have demonstrated the necessity of minutely studying the fruits of plants in attempting to arrange them according to the sum of their affinities, as in many cases the true nature of the ripe fruit, especially with respect to the placentation of the seeds, can only be determined by this means. ”

“ Dr. Sibthorp, who was well acquainted with his learned friend Jacquin's plant, mentions it in his papers as one of the most
common species in various parts of the continent of Greece, as well as in almost all the Greek islands, growing on rocks and walls near the sea-side. At Athens it is pounded and applied as a cooling cataplasm to bruises or to gouty limbs, being called Κολλωςιδα by the Athenians of the present day. Its most general names however in modern Greek are Αμάραντο and Σταφυλάκι.
The three species of Αειζωον of Sempervivum in Dioscorides seem to have been misunderstood. ”

“ It consists of a solitary flower of that plant, which, instead of its proper ringent form, with two long and two short stamens, has a salver-shaped regular corolla, with six stamens, four of which are longer than the others. There is also what appears to be the style partly changed to a petal, and yet bearing a membranous expansion like one side of an anther. ”

“ An œconomy, in many respects similar to that now described, obtains also in Orchideæ, in which, however, the processes connecting the antheræ with the stigma, where they exist, are in many cases derived from the masses of pollen themselves; but in others they as certainly originate from the stigma, or its glandular appendage. ”

“ From the colour of the calyx, many genera of Proteaceæ are indicated with tolerable certainty. Thus Synaphea is distinguished from Conospermum by its yellow flowers; and no instance of yellow flowers has been met with in the numerous genera Serruria and Spatalla, nor any of purple in Leucadendron. In some
genera however, as in Banksia and Isopogon, it is evidently of very little importance.
The fleshy or scale-like bodies, which surround the ovarium in the greater number of plants of this family, are in many case so manifestly secreting organs, that it is surprising Mr. ”

“ The point in dispute is whether this order, comprehending Asclepias, Cynanchum, Pergularia, Stapelia, and several genera, at present confounded with these, ought to be referred to Pentandria or Gynandria, and, if to the latter, whether the antheræ are to be considered as five or ten; all of which opinions have had advocates of the greatest name in the science. ”

“ Sibthorp took it for our Sedum ochroleucum, on the authority of a figure in the celebrated Imperial manuscript of Dioscorides at Vienna, which he considered as of great authority. The qualities however recorded of this 3d Αειζωον are quite at variance with those which Dr. Sibthorp himself attributes to the Sedum ochroleucum, and which agree with those ascribed by Dioscorides to his second species. I remain,
J. E. Smith. ”