number of species in the lower latitudes, and several within the tropics.
I now proceed to make some observations on the orders above enumerated, and on such of the other families, included in the collection, as present anything remarkable, either in their geographical distribution, or in their structure; more especially where the latter establishes or suggests new affinities; and I shall take them nearly in the same order as that followed in the botanical appendix to Captain Flinders's Voyage.
ANONACEÆ. Only three species of this family are contained in the collection. One of these is Anona Senegalensis, of which the genus has been considered doubtful, even by M. Dunal in his late valuable Monograph of the order.[1] That it really belongs to Anona, however, appears from the specimen with ripe fruit preserved in the collection. It is remarkable therefore as the only species of this genus yet known which is not a native of equinoctial America; for Anona Asiatica, of which Linnæus had no specimen in his herbarium when he first proposed it under this name, according to the original synonym, is nothing more than Anona muricata: and A. obtusiflora, supposed by M. Tussac[2] to have been introduced into the American Islands from Asia, does not appear to differ from A. mucosa of Jacquin, which is known to be a native of Martinica.
The second plant of this order in the collection is very nearly related to Piper Æthiopicum of the shops, the Unona Æthiopica, and perhaps also Unona aromatica of Dunal:[3] these with several plants already published, form a genus, which, like Anona, is common to America and Africa, but of which no species has yet been observed in Asia.
Of MALPIGHIACEÆ, an order chiefly belonging to equinoctial America, there are also three species from Congo.
One of these is Banisteria Leona, first described, from [426
- ↑ Monogr. de la famille des Anonacées, p. 76.
- ↑ Flore des Antilles, 1, p. 193.
- ↑ Anonae, p. 113 et 112.
