Page:A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland.djvu/12

 its antheræ, each of which consists of four cells, communicating with one common tube, the excretory duct of the pollen. In the construction of this name we run counter indeed to a precept of Linnæus (Crit. Bot. p. 44), and we do so because in that instance we think him in the wrong. After objecting, with reason, to generic names too familiar in sound to each other, he is somewhat unmerciful in stigmatising almost all that have any syllables in common, and wonders at Vaillant for using the termination theca at all. The word surely in itself is unexceptionable; and as all the generic names of Vaillant constructed with it, even Tetragonotheca (which Linnæus at first retained), are now laid aside, and therefore there can be no ambiguity, we hope to be excused for adopting theca, as it so precisely suits our purpose.

Tetratheca probably belongs to M. de Jussieu's order of Ericæ, not indeed that it answers well to his characters of that order, but it is allied to some of its genera, especially Pyrola. All its species are small shrubs with red flowers (varying to white), which retain their colour when dried.

Tetratheca juncea has a small woody root, which has some appearance of that of an annual plant. The stem is much branched, even from the base; the branches alternate, long and slender, very acutely triangular, and almost winged. Leaves mostly small and not numerous, alternate, lanceolate, entire. Stipulæ none. Each branch

produces