pentapbylla. According to my view the genus Cleome would include Gynan- dropsis, a name which, as that of a section, may be continued to those species of M. de Candolle’s genus belonging to equinoctial America, and having the common ¡estivation of the family: while Gymnogonia, derived from its remarkable ¡estivation, may be employed for the section that includes C. pentaphylla, of which the name might be given in the following manner:_ C l e o m e ( G ym n o g o n ia ) p e n t a p h y l l a . This plant, the earliest known species of Cleome, and that on which the genus was chiefly constituted, was found in Bornou. The species is regarded by M. de Candolle as a native of the West India islands, and he doubts whether it may not also belong to Egypt and India. On the other hand 1 consider it a native of Africa and India, and am not satisfied with the evidence of its being also indigenous to the American islands, where, though now very common, it has probably been introduced by the negroes, who use it both as a potherb and in medicine. It is not unlikely that M. de Candolle, in forming his opinion of the original country of this plant, has been in part determined by finding several species of his Gynandropsis decidedly and exclusively natives of the new continent. But if I am correct in separating these species from the section to which Cleome (Gymnogonia) pentaphylla belongs, this argument, which I have formerly applied to analogous cases *, would be clearly in favour of the opinion I have here advanced; those species of the section with Which I am acquainted being undoubtedly natives of Africa or of India. C l e o m e ( S il iq u a r ia ) A ra b ic a , (Linn. sp. pi. ed. 2 . p. 9 3 9 . De. Cand. prodr. 1. p. 240), a supposed variety of which was found both in the neighbourhood qf Tripoli and in Soudan, belongs to another subdivision of the genus, equally natural, and readily distinguishable. The species of this subdivision are included in M. De Candolle’s second section of Cleome, but are there associated with many other plants, to which they have very little affinity. All the species of Cleome Siliquaria are indigenous to North Africa and Middle Asia, except violacea, which is a native of Portugal. Cleome deflexa of M. De Candolle (prodr. I. p. 240.), founded on specimens in Mr. Lambert’s herbarium, which were sent by Don Joseph Pavon as belonging to Peru, seems to present a remarkable exception to this geographical distribution of the section. But on examining these specimens I find them absolutely iden- Tuckey's Congo, p. 469. tical with some states of violacea. I think it probable, therefore, either that they are erroneously stated to have come from Peru, or that this species may have been there introduced from European seeds. C a d a ba fa r in o sa (Forsk. Arab. p. 68. De Cand. prodr. 1. p. 244) is in the herbarium from Bornou. The specimen is pentandrous, and in other respects agrees with all those which I have seen from Senegal, and with Stroemia farinosa of my catalogue of Abyssinian plants, collected by Mr. Salt, and published in his travels. M. De Candolle, who had an opportunity of examining this Abyssinian plant, refers it to his C. dubia, a species established on specimens found in Senegal, and said to differ from farinosa, slightly in the form of the leaves, and in being tetrandrous. Of the plant from Abyssinia I have seen only two expanded flowers, one of which is decidedly pentandrous, the other apparently tetrandrous. Mr. Salt, however, from an examination of recent specimens, states it to be pentandrous. It is probably, therefore, not different from C. farinosa of Forskal, whose specimens M. De Candolle has not seen. And as the form of leaves is variable in the specimens from Senegal, and not elliptical, but between oval and oblong, in those of Abyssinia, C. dubia is probably identical with, or a variety merely of farinosa, as M. De Candolle himself seems to suspect. C r a t e v a A d a n so n ii (De Cand. prodr. 1. p. 243) is in the collection from Bornou. This species is established by M. De Candolle upon a specimen m hi. de Jussieu s herbarium, found in Senegal by Adanson, and is supposed to differ from all the other species in having its foliola equal at the base. I have examined the specimen in M. de Jussieu’s herbarium, in which, however, the leaves not being fully developed, I was unable to satisfy myself respecting their form. But in a specimen, also from Senegal, which I received from M. Desfontaines, the lateral foliola, though having manifestly unequal sides, are but slightly unequal at the base, and the inequality consists in a somewhat greater decurrence of the lamina dn the anterior or inner margin of the footstalk. As well as can be determined, in very young leaves, this is also the case in the specimen from Bornou; and it is manifestly so in my specimen of C. lata, which appears to belong to the same species. Crateva lata was founded by M. De Candolle on a plant from Senegal, communicated by M. Gay, from whom I also received a specimen in 1824, with the remark, that it was not different from C. Adansonii. In that
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