Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2.djvu/556

542 for its thickened filaments and flat leafless stems, are found only within the tropic. The remaining genera of the order have not yet been observed in New Holland.

Magnoliaceæ and Dilleniaceæ appear to me to form two orders of one natural class. These orders are sufficiently distinct from each other in most cases, both in fructification and habit; they are not, however, easily defined. The ovaria, which are indefinite in number in the greater part of Magnoliaceæ, are also so in certain Dilleniaceæ; there are likewise examples in both orders, in which they are reduced to unity; and the stipulation of Magnoliaceæ exists in Wormia.

PITTOSPOREÆ. Authors have generally been disposed to consider Pittosporum, Bursaria, and Biliardiera, as belonging to Rhamneæ or Celastrinæ, from both of which they are certainly widely different; and they appear to me to constitute, along with some unpublished Australian genera, a very distinct natural family. form a small tribe chiefly belonging to Terra Australis, where most of them have been observed in the principal parallel; but certain species of all the published genera exist at the south end of Van Diemen's Island, and both Pittosporum and Bursaria are found within the tropic. Pittosporum, the only genus of the order which is not confined to Terra Australis, has the most extensive range in that country, and has been found in many other parts of the world, namely, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, the Society and Sandwich Islands, the Moluccas, in China, Japan, and even Madeira. It has not, however, been observed in any part of America.

POLYGALEÆ. The curious observation of Richard, that the arillus