ON THE PROTEACEJE OF JUSSIEtJ. 15
As to Proteacese, it must be acknowledged that in Banksia both verticillated and scattered leaves occur ; but the leaves constantly in threes in Lambertia seems to me a circum- stance of even greater importance than the number of flowers in the involucrum ; and the opposite leaves of Xylomelum distinguish it at once both from Bhopala and Hake a.
Although the form and divisions of leaves in the order are variable in no common degree, yet there are certain genera, both among those of Africa and New Holland, which the leaves even in these respects assist in indicating. Thus, in that genus to which I have applied the name of Protect (the Erodendrum of Mr. Salisbury), and I believe also in my Leucadendron, there is no instance of a divided or toothed leaf; thus also the leaves of Spatalla are fili- form and undivided, and those oiBerruria filiform and almost always pinnatifid. Their dichotomous divisions in Simsia and Franklandia are still more characteristic ; and their division and remarkable reticulation readily distinguish Synaphea from Conospermum.
The inflorescence in Froteacese, whatever use botanists may think proper to make of it in their generic characters, is of undoubted importance in determining genera, and [27 even in the primary division of the order it appears to be of nearly equal consequence with the fruit itself; for, in dividing the order into two sections from the structure of the ovarium, it will be found that while all the single-seeded genera have each flower subtended by a proper bractea, or more rarely are without one, those with two or more seeds have, with very few exceptions, the flowers of their spikes or clusters disposed in pairs, each pair being furnished with only one bractea common to both flowers : it may also be observed that all the American and two thirds of the New Holland species have this mode of inflorescence, while only one instance of it occurs in Africa.
The single envelope of the stamina and pistillum in Pro- teacese I have, with Jussieu, denominated calyx, chiefly because the stamina, of equal number with its laciniae, are constantly opposite to them, and from the close analogy
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