The next genus of Crucifcræ to be noticed is Farsetia, a fragment of the original species of which is in the collection. There are also several specimens of a plant, found in the desert, supposed to be new, and which, though with- out flowers, and considerably different in the form of its stigma, I am inclined, from the resemblance in habit, in pubescence, in sihcula, in seeds, and especially from the exact similarity in the structure of the septum, to refer to the same genus.[1]
As the introduction of the structure of the dissepiment [217 into the generic characters of Cruciferæ is now proposed for the first time, and as I believe that its texture and appearance should always be attended to in constituting genera in this family of plants, I shall here offer a few remarks respecting it.
According to the particular view which I briefly but distinctly published in 1818, and which M. De Candolle first adopted in 1821, of the composition of the pistillum in Crucifera),[2] the dissepiment in this family is necessarily
- ↑
FARESITA.
Farsetia. Turra, Farsetia, p. 5. Farsetiæ sp. Hort. Kew. ed. 2, vol. 4, p. 69. De Cand. Syst. 2, p. 286.
Char. Gen. Calyx clausus, basi vix bisaccatus. Filamenia omnia edentula. Antheræ lineares. Silicula ovalis v. oblonga, sessilis, valvis planiusculis, loculis polyspermis (raro l-2-sperniis), funiculis liberis. Dissepimentum uninerve, venosum. Semina marginata. Colyledones accumbentes.
Herbæ suffuricostæ ramosæ, pube bipartita appressa incanæ. Folia integerrina. Racemi subspicati.
Obs. Dissepimentum in omnibus exemplaribus utriusque speciei a nobis visis completum, sed in F. ægyptiaca quandoqiie basi fenestratum, fide D. Desfontaines. (Flor. Allant. 2, tab. 16O.)
F. ægyptiaca species unica certa est, nam F. stylosa, cujus floras ignoti, ob stigmatis lobos patentes non absque hæsitatione ad hoc genus retuli.
Farsetia.? stylosa, ramosissima, siliculis oblongis polyspermis passimque brevè ovalibus 1-2-spermis, stylo diametrum transversum siliculæ subæquantæ, stigmatis lobis patentibus.
Obs. Exemplaria omnia foliis dcstituta, sed illorum cicatrices ni fallor obviæ.
- ↑ In a work published in 1810, the following passage, which has some relation to this subject, occurs : — "Capsuias omnes pluriloculares e totidem thecis conferruminatas esse, diversas solum modis gradibiisque variis cohnesionis et soiubilitatis partium judico." (Prodr. Flor. Nov. Holl. 1, p. 538.) This opinion, however, respecting the formation of multilocular ovaria, might be held, with- out necessarily leading to the theory in question of the composition of the fruit in Crucifcræ, which I first distinctly stated in an essay on Compositæ, read
