reality much more nearly approaches to that of Dracæna Draco, allowance being made for the greater number, and extreme narrowness of leaves, to which all the radiating [538 vessels belong.[1]
Obs. II.—I have placed Kingia in the natural order Junceæ along with Dasypogon, Calectasia and Xerotes, genera peculiar to New Holland, and of which the two former have hitherto been observed only, along with it, on the shores of King George's Sound.
The striking resemblance of Kingia, in caudex and leaves, to Xanthorrhoea, cannot fail to suggest its affinity to that genus also. Although this affinity is not confirmed by a minute comparison of the parts of fructification, a sufficient agreement is still manifest to strengthen the doubts formerly expressed of the importance of those characters by which I attempted to define certain families, of the great class Liliaceæ.
In addition, however, to the difference in texture of the outer coat of the seed, and in those other points, on which I then chiefly depended in distinguishing Junceæ from Asphodeleæ, a more important character in Junceæ exists in the position of the embryo, whose radicle points always to the base of the seed, the external umbilicus being placed in the axis of the inner or ventral surface, either immediately above the base as in Kingia, or towards the middle, as in Xerotes.
[539Obs. III.—On the structure of the Unimpregnated Ovulum in Phænogamous Plants.
The description which I have given of the Ovulum of Kingia, though essentially different from the accounts hitherto published of that organ before fecundation, in
- ↑ My knowledge of this remarkable structure of Xanthorrhœa is chiefly derived from specimens of the caudex of one of the larger species of the genus, brought from Port Jackson, and deposited in the collection at, the Jardin du Roi of Paris by M. Gaudichaud, the very intelligent botanist who was attached to Captain de Freycinet's voyage.
