nensis, which was sent so named, by Loureiro himself, and have found it to agree in every important point with Alsodeia, even as to the number of parietal placentæ. Loureiro, however, describes the fruit of Pentaloba as a five-lobed, five- seeded berry, and if this account be correct, the genus ought to be considered as distinct; but if, which is not very improbable, the fruit be really capsular, it is evidently referable to Alsodeia; with the species of which, from Madagascar and the west coast of equinoctial Africa, it agrees in the manifest union of its filaments.
It appears therefore that the ten genera now enumerated, and perhaps also Lauradia of Vandelli, may very properly be reduced to one; and they all at least manifestly belong to the same section of Violeæ, though at present they are to be found in various, and some rather distant, natural orders.
M. de Jussieu, in adopting Aublet's erroneous description of the stamina of Rinorea and Conohoria, has referred both these genera to Berberides,[1] to which he has also annexed Riana, adding a query whether Passura may not 442] belong to the same genus. With M. de Beauvois, he refers Ceranthera to Meliaceæ; and Pentaloba of Loureiro he reduces also to the same order.[2] Piparea is, together with Viola, annexed to Cistinæ in his Genera Plantarum, and is therefore the most correctly placed, though its structure is the least known, of all these supposed genera.
- ↑ The genera belonging to Berberideæ are Berberis (to which Ilex Japonica of Thunberg belongs); Leontice {including Caulophyllum, respecting which see Linn. Soc. Transac. 12, p. 145) Epimedium; and Diphylleia of Michaux. Jeffersonia may perhaps differ in the internal structure of its seeds, as it does in their arillus, from true Berberideæ, but it agrees with them in the three principal characters of their flower, namely, in their stamina being equal in number and opposite to the petals; in the remarkable dehiscence of antheræ; and in the structure of the ovarium. Podophyllum agrees with Diphylleia in habit, and in the fasciculi of vessels of the stem being irregularly scattered; essentially in the floral envelope, and in the structure of the ovarium; its stamina, also, though numerous, are not altogether indefinite, but appear to have a certain relation both in number and insertion to the petals: in the dehiscence of antheræ, and perhaps also in the structure of seeds, it differs from this order, to which, however, it may be appended. Nandina ought to be included in Berberideæ, differing only in its more numerous and densely imbricate bracteæ, from which to the calyx and even to the petals, the transition is nearly imperceptible; and in the dehiscence of its antheræ.
- ↑ Mém. du Mus. d'Hist. Nat. 3, p. 440.
