these evidently belongs to Passalia, an unpublished genus in Sir Joseph Banks's herbarium, and described in the manuscripts of Solander from a plant found by Smeathman at Sierra Leone, which is perhaps not specifically distinct from that of Congo, or from Ceranthera dentata of the Flore d'Oware. But Ceranthera,[1] which M. de Beauvois, being unacquainted with its fruit, has placed in the order Meliaceæ, is not different from Alsodeia, a genus published somewhat earlier, and from more perfect materials, by M. du Petit Thouars,[2] who refers it to Violeæ. The latter generic name ought of course to be adopted, and with a change in the termination (Alsodinæ) it may also denote the section of this order with regular flowers.
Physiphora of Sir Joseph Banks's herbarium, discovered by himself in Brazil, differs from Alsodeia only in its filaments being very slightly connected at base, and in the form and texture of its capsule, which is membranaceous, and, as the name imports, inflated.
Five species belonging to this section of Violeæ occur in Aublet's History of the Plants of Guiana, where each of [441 them is considered as forming a separate genus. Of three of these genera, namely, Conohoria, Rinorca, and Riana the flowers alone are described; the two others, Passura and Piparea, were seen in fruit only.
From the examination of flowers of Aublet's original specimens of the three former genera, in Sir Joseph Banks's herbarium, and of the fruit of Conohoria, which entirely agrees with that of Passura, and essentially with that of Piparea, I have hardly a doubt of these five plants, notwithstanding some differences in the disposition of their leaves, actually belonging to one and the same genus; and as they agree with Physiphora in every respect, except in the texture and form of the capsule, and with the Passalia of Sierra Leone and Congo, except in having their stamina nearly or entirely distinct, it appears that all those genera may be referred to Alsodeia.
I have also examined, in Sir Joseph Banks's herbarium, a specimen of Pentaloba sessilis of the Flora Cochinchi-
