These little resinous deposits occupy a prominent place in DeCandolle’s characters both of
tribes and genera. Tans eh, who strongly objects to DeCandolle’s general arrangement, especially
his suborders, and proposes a new one’ for the acceptance of Botanists, excludes them from
his sectional or Tribal characters, but adopts them in his generic ones. He derives the characters
of his tribes from the external forms of the seed, altogether rejecting DeCandolle’s suborders
requiring dissection for their determination,and as being inconstant and not always applicable
to the species referred to them. That his distribution is really an improvement on the arrangement
he wishes to set aside, I am unable to say, my collection being too small to admit of
my entering into a comparison, but I suspect both will be found defective when the order is
better understood. One point in both, which 1 consider objectionable, is the great number of
sections and subsections—3 suborders and seventeen tribes in DeCandolle’s and—12 tribes and
19 subtribes in Tauseh’s arrangement. The distinctions between these, are often so exceedingly
slight as to be quite inapprehensible by all who have not especially devoted themselves to the
study of the family and are in short unfit to form good generic characters. The circular method
of investigation, which is now rendering such important services to zoology, has not yet been sufficiently
extended to botany, though much wanted, for the elucidation of such extensive and natural
families as the present. This is much to be regretted, as it is in such instances only, we
are enabled to form a just estimate of the value of that system. This therefore seems an excellent
example by which to test its powers, as all previous attempts to produce a satisfactory
arrangement of the species of Umbetliferae, whether artificial or natural have fallen short of
the mark—simply it appears to me, from the authors having neglected in the first instance, to
determine the intrinsic value of the characters they employed in the formation of their sectional
subdivisions, and in the construction of their genera. As this knowledge is indespensible to
success in all systems, but forms the primary point of enquiry in the circular one, it promises
to succeed where others less attentive to this point have failed.
Linnaeus’s arrangement according the involucra for example, which has been objected toby
even his most determined followers, as being a departure from his own principles of deriving
all generic characters from the flower and fruit, seems notwithstanding, to bring together as
natural assemblages of genera as the more highly wrought one of Koch and DeCandolle, simply
because a uniform value is assigned to the sectional characters : and I should not be surprised
yet to find some one returning to this despised organ for the primary characters of a new distribution.
I confess I cannot suppose such an attempt will succeed in producing a natural arrangement,
though I think very useful secondary characters may be obtained from the involucra.
The proposal of Tausch, that of taking sectional characters from the external forms of the-
fruit, I think good, but so far as I am able to judge from his characters,is carried too far. Mr.
Burnet gives a sketch on a similar plan,which is probably better,his characters being more easily
apprehended. That they are the best that could be obtained is a point I am unable to determine,
but as wire drawn distinctions are avoided, it promises well. Upon the whole, I am of
opinion that the order still stands in need of an able monographist duly impressed with the conviction
that most, if not all his predecessors, forgetting that the limits of sections and genera
should be marked by broad lines easily seen, have erred in seeking to subdivide on the strength
of minute and even theoretical characters when the adoption of other more obvious ones were
open to them. Unfortunately for the science this is an error too easily fallen into, one, to which
nearly all are liable, and to the extension of which, nothing is tending so much as the now
nearly constant practice of giving very extended generic characters, or rather generic descriptions,
including a number of useless particulars common perhaps to every species of the order,
but which, when accidentally wanting, has sometimes the effect of causing varieties of the same
species to be distributed as new species in different genera, and even raised to the rank of distinct
genera. That errors similar in kind have always been avoided in this order I am far from
thinking, and to me it seems probable, if revised in the way I have suggested,a considerable reduction
in the number of both genera and species will be affected with advantage to the whole.
There are now known about 120U species, for the reception of which no fewer than 200 genera
have been constructed, surely a most unnecessary multiplication in an order so much alike
throughout. As however the subject is one on which 1 can only reason hypothetically, my acquaintance
with it being limited, I refrain from further remark having already I fear said more
than is prudent.
In the accompanying plate (No. 117) I have given dissections of one species of each of
DeCandolle’s tribes^ found in this part of India, in which I have endeavoured to represent their
respective peculiarities, an attempt in which I fear, owing partly to the minuteness of the objects
and theoretical character of the distinctions, and partly to the imperfections of the graphic
art among us, I have not succeeded to the extent I could have wished.
In explanation of these dissections I shall now subjoin his abridged characters of each tribe.
I. Suborder ORTHOSPERMiE. Albumen flat, or nearly so, within, neither involute nor
convolute, next the commissure.
* Umbels simple or imperfect. Fruit without vittae.
1. H ydrocotylrae. Fruit compressed laterally ; Mericarps convex or acute on the back.
Hydrocotyle polycephala.
2. Saniculear. Fruit, ovate globose. Sanicula elata.
* * Umbels compound or perfect ; vittae in the fr u it various, rarely wanting.
f Paucijugate, namely, furnished with primary ridges only.
3. Ammeneae. Fruit laterally compressed or dedymous. Ptychotis ajowan.
4. Seselineae. A transverse section of the fruit, round or roundish or with the miricarps somewhat
compressed on the back. Foeniculum vulgare.
5. P eucedaneae. Fruit compressed from the back of the mericarps, raphe marginal, margin
expanded into a single, not double, wing on each side, (in Angeliceae there is a double wing
on each side). Heracleum rigens
f f Multijugate, namely, f urnished with both primary and secondary ridges
6 Cumineae. F ru it from th e sides o f the mericarps somewhat compressed all th e ridges wingless.
(T h e transverse section in th e figure does not. very well correspond with th is ch aracter,
perhaps th e fau lt o f th e d raftsm a n .) Cuminum Cyrninum.
^. D aucineae. Fruit somewhat compressed or round from the back of the mericarps, with the
lateral primary ridges placed on the flat commissure,- the secondary ones either expanded
into free prickles or the prickles united into a wing. Daucus Carota.
(The transverse section of the figure does not agree well with the character,I believe from
having had bad subjects to represent).
II. Suborder CA MPYLOSPERMAE. Albumen marked with a longitudinal furrow, owing to
the involute margins.
f Multijugate.
C aucaline.®. fru it late ra lly con tra c ted or ro u n d ish , th e late ra l p rimary ridges placed on
th e plain of th e commissure, all th e secondary ones ex p an d ed in to prickles o r bristles.
f f Paucijugate.
8. Scanoicineae. Fruit laterally compressed or contracted, elongated, often beaked. Ozadia
faeniculacea.
III. Suborder CiELOSPERMAE. Albumen next the commissure, concave or curved longitudinally,
that is from the base to the apex.
(A very useless division, as the few genera belonging to it might have been with equal
convenience referred to the first.)
9. C oriandreae. Fruit laterally contracted and didymous or subglobose, primary and secondary
ridges wingless, often scarcely distinct. Coriandrum sativum.
Caucalineae is omitted in the plate, partly for want of room, partly because I do not think
it a native of this part of India.
That Tausch’s classification might not be altogether unknown among us I shall now give
the characters of his tribes, indicating under each the name of the subtribes and Indian genera
that belong to it.