Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 10.djvu/444

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368 Dr. Smith's Account of Brunonia.
In arenosis maritimis Novæ Hollandiæ.
At Pine Port, just within the tropic, on the east coast of New Holland, flowering in August 1802. Mr. Brown.
Forma omninò præcedentis, at folia numerosiora, angustiora, undique sericea, pilis arctè adpressis. Capitulum priori simillimum, sed apices calycis interioris denudati, subexserti, colorati, obtusiusculi.


The genus under consideration is, as Mr. Brown remarks, exceedingly interesting, on account of its apparent relationship to several very different natural orders, and the great difficulty of referring it to any one in particular. Its discoverer is inclined to place it between the Campanulaceæ and Corymbiferæ of Jussieu, though it overturns the artificial characters of both orders, having a superior germen. But it accords with the latter in the very important circumstance of the upright embryo, and precisely in the number, form, texture, and connexion of its stamina and antheræ, which are altogether those of a true syngenesious flower. Its stigma on the other hand bears an exact resemblance to some of the Campanulaceæ, as Goodenia, Scævola, Velleia, &c. and is unlike every thing else in nature. For this reason, and for the same of its germen superum, which is the case with some of these, as Velleia, Mr. Brown was disposed to place it at the end of this order, bordering upon Syngenesiæ.
On considering the above remarks, assisted by dried specimens, I have presumed to suggest that Brunonia may perhaps belong to Dipsaceæ, and Mr. Brown in reply informs me that this idea had not entirely escaped him. I was led to it by the general aspect of the plants, and by a suspicion of Jussieu*, that the
* See Adanson and Gærtner on this subject.
exterior