Page:Miscellaneousbot01brow.djvu/153

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NATURAL ORDERS.
135

genus I have formerly alluded to as consisting of Ruellia uliginosa and R. balsamea;[1] and a new species of Blepharis[451. All these genera exist in India, and none of them have yet been found in America.


CONVOLVULACEAE. The herbarium of Professor Smith contains twenty-two species of this order, among which, however, there is no plant that presents anything remarkable in its structure; the far greater part belonging to Ipomoea, the rest to Convolvulus.

In the herbarium there is a single species of Hydrolea, nearly related to Sagonea palustris of Aublet, which would also be referred to this order by M. de Jussieu. But Hydrolea[2] appears to me to constitute, together with Nama, a distinct family (Hydroleae) more nearly approaching to Polemoniaceae than to Convolvulaceae.


SCROPHULARONAE. The collection contains only ten plants of this family, of which two form new genera, whose characters depend chiefly on the structure of antherae and form of corolla.


The LABIATAE of the herbarium' consist of seven species, three of which belong to Ocymum, a genus common to equinoctial Asia and Africa, but not extending to America; an equal number to Hyptis, which is chiefly American, and has not been observed in India; the seventh is a species of Hoslundia, a genus hitherto found only on the west coast of Africa, and which, in its inflorescence and in the verticillate leaves of one of its species, approaches to the following order.


VERBENACEAE, together with Labiatae form one natural class,[3] for the two orders of which it has already become difficult to find distinguishing characters.

In the Congo herbarium there are seven Verbenaceae, consisting of three beautiful species of Clerodendron; two



  1. Prodr. Flor. Nov. Holl 1, p. 478.
  2. Vid. op. citat, p. 482.
  3. Flinders' Voy. 2. p. 565. (Antề, p. 38)