PLANTS JAVANICLE RARIORES. 617
referred to the Natural Order Mcdvacem as then under- stood : the generic characters, however, are stated to be taken from Aublet and Cavanilles. The erroneous assertion of the latter that the flowers are hermaphrodite, and his account of the gradual development of pistillum are adopted, and finally Jussieu expresses a doubt whether the embryo is corrugated, which he describes it to be in all the other genera of the same section of Malvacece, and which he considers as one of the principal characters of that Natural Order.
In Schreber's edition of the c Genera Plantarum' 1 of Linnaeus, published the same year, Stcrctdia is referred to Bodecandria, and the few changes made in the character are apparently taken from Cavanilles, and among these is the stigma bifidicm.
In 1789 also Dryancler, in the first edition of 'Hortus Kewensis,' established, partly from the manuscripts of J. G. Kcenig, the genus Heritiera? which he justly places next to Sterculia, and refers both to Moncecia Monadetyliia .
Neither in Willdenow's edition of the ' Species Planta- rum' of Linnaeus, nor in Persoon's ' Synopsis' is any important alteration made in the character of the genus, which, following Schreber, is referred by Willdenow to Bodecandria, and by Persoon to MonadeljjJda.
In 1804 Ventenat, in his ' Jardin de la Malmaison,' 3 gives a considerably altered, and in most respects improved character of Sterculia, of which with some other genera of Malvacece, and the first section of Jussieu's Tiliacece, lie proposes to form a new Natural Order, Sterculiacea, his principal distinguishing character of which has been already mentioned. He refers the genus to Monadelphia Bodecandria of the Linnean system for no very sufficient reason, namely the existence of the rudiments of the other sex in both the male and female flowers. He is the first to notice the albumen bipartibile and radicula embryonis umbi- lico opposita or contraria, both of which he introduces into
1 p. 324. » Vol. iii. p. 546. 3 Vol. ii. fol. 91.
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