three laciniæ usually forming the lower lip has a single nerve passing through its axis; the upper lip is therefore to be considered, even when entire, as made up of two confluent laciniæ; and if this test be allowed to be conclusive, and applied to the corolla of those genera of Labiatæ in which it is supposed to be resupinate, the opinion will be found to be erroneous.
MYOPORINÆ.[1] The principal characters in the fructification of this order, by which it is distinguished from Verbenaceæ, are the presence of albumen in the ripe seed, and the direction of the embryo, whose radicule always points towards the apex of the fruit. The first of these characters, however, is not absolute, and neither of them can 567] be ascertained before the ripening of the seed; for previous to the complete development of the embryo the fluid albumen or liquor amnios equally exists in both orders; and although all the genera of Verbenaceæ have an embryo whose radicule points towards the base of the fruit, yet many of them have pendulous seeds, and consequently a radicule remote from the umbilicus. Hence Avicennia,[2] which I formerly annexed to Myoporinæ, should be restored to Verbenaceæ, with which also it much better agrees in habit.
Myoporinæ, with the exception of Bontia, a genus of equinoctial America, and of two species of Myoporum found in the Sandwich Islands, has hitherto been observed only in the southern hemisphere, and yet neither in South Africa nor in South America beyond the tropic. Its maximum is evidently in the principal parallel of Terra Australis, in every part of which it exists; in the more southern parts of New Holland, and even in Van Diemen's Island it is more frequent than within the tropic. The genus Myoporum is also found in New Zealand, Norfolk Island, New Caledonia, and the Society Islands.
PROTEACEÆ.[3] I have formerly[4] offered several obser-
- ↑ Prodr. fl. Nov. Holl. 514.
- ↑ Prodr. fl. Nov. Holl. 518.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Lin. soc. transact. 10, p. 15.
