58
ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDIAN BOTANY.
He objects to DeCandolle's suborders, constructed on the form of the albumen, because the
term Campy tosperme does not apply to all the plants that he DC. places here, as one genus
combines in itself both Campy/ospermous and Caelosperrnous plants, and Bupleurvm rotund/fo-
lium and B. protract?mt areC ampylo$permou<;,whe all the other species are Ort/wspermovs. &c.
Many other instances of a similar sort are brought for ward to show that divisions grounded on
such minute differences of structure are artificial and fallacious, an opinion in which it seems next
to impossible not to coincide, even though we may feel unable to propose better. That
Tausch's is better as a whole, I am unable to say, but as it is grounded on characters which can
often be made out long before the albumen has attained the degree of maturity required by the
other system, it seems more applicable to practice, that of itself making it a more advantageous
arrangement in so difficult an order as this, it too often happening that we are obliged to work
with specimens gathered long before their seed are ripe. He further discards all tribal characters taken from the inflorescence, whether the umbels are complete or incomplete, simple or compound ; many of the tribes as constituted by him combining these different modifications. 'I bis
is to be expected if the seminal arrangement be strictly adhered to, and indeed it seems a most
illogical course to pursue, to take our primary divisions from the albumen, that is from the inter-
nal structure of the seed, and our secondary ones from the inflorescence.
Tauch's method of taking his tribal characters uniformly from the seed, discarding all collateral ones as only applicable to genera, is a decided improvement on that of Koch and DeC'an- dolle.in whose conspectus we find the first character —" Albumen intus planum" — and the second " Umbellis simpUcibus out imperfectis" the one having not the most remote relation to the other, a circumstance calculated to lower its value in practice, and which, is reduced to nothing, if but half of the objections urged by Tausch against the primary divisions be found true. Leaving these questions for future discussion, I now subjoin in his own words, as given in the .Annals des Sciences Naturelles, Tausch's characters of his 12 tribes, and the names of his subtribes with the Indian genera belonging to each, which may be of use in assisting us to form an opinion on the merits of the two systems.
Tribus I. " Ceramosperm^ s Testacy. Fructus globosus aut globoso-didymus, jugis filiformibus primariis aut simul secundariis, mericarpiis utriculos incompletos commissura plus minusve feneslratos, seu pericarpium bivalve biloculare constituentibus.
Subtribus I. Coriandreae Coriandrum.
Tribus II. Rhy> chospkrmae s Rostratae. Fructus pyramidatus aut cylindraceus elonga- fusve, a latere contractus, apice rostratus, aut plus minusve atfenusttus stylisve rigidis rostratus, mericarpiis utriculatis nudis, aut nonnunquam setulosis, jugatis, jugis primariis aut simul secun- dariis costatis.
Subtribus II. Scandicineae. Ozodia W. and A. — Subtribus 3. Cumineae. Cuminum. Linn.
Tribus III. Acanthospermae s Armatae. Fructus teres aut compressus, mericarpii utri- culatis jugatis, jugis omnibus in aculeos setasve liberas aut basi cohaerentes excurrentibus. Subtribus IV. Caucalideae Daucus, Torilis. — Subtribus 5. Trachymaralhreae.
Tribus IV. Ptfrygospermae s A lateae. Fructus teres aut compressus mericarpiis utricu- latis, jugis omnibus aut nonnullis in alas membranaceas liberas integras, aut raro bobatas ex- currentibus, aut expansis et fructum 4-8 alatum formantibus.
Subtribus VI. Mulineae. — Subtribus 7. Angeliceae. — Subtribus 8. Laserpilieae.
Tribus V. Diclidospermae s Valvatae. Fructus a dorso lenticulari-vel planocompressus, commissura non angustatus, mericarpiis utriculatis, jugis 5 primariis, rarissime et secundariis, raro omnibus costatis, saepissime 3 dorsalibus costatis, 2 lateralibus in alas aut margines incra- ssatas sed raphe marginali junctas dilatatis, et fructum utrinque unialatum formantibus.
Subtribus IX. Peucedaneae. Anethum, Pastinaca, Heracleum.— Subtribus 10. Selerineae.
Tribus VI. Tetragonosperm/E s Tetr a edr/e. Fructus a dorso compressus, saaape com- pressissimus, commissura plus minusve saape valde contractus, et tunc acute tetragono-prisma- ticus (non alatus) mericarpiis utriculatis compressis 5— jugatis, jugis filiformibus, nonnullis quan- doque obliterates, intermediis 2 seepissimc margiuem mericarpii utrinque cingentibus et ideo angulos tetraedri marginantibus.
