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 150 BOTANY OF CONGO.

only two species have hitherto been pubhshed as belonging to the west coast : the first, supposed to be Piper Cnheha, and certainly very nearly related to it, is noticed by Chisius ■} the second is imperfectly described by Adanson in his account of Senegal A third species of Piper, however, occurs in Sir Joseph Banks's herbarium, from Sierra Leone : and we know that at least one species of this genus and several of Pepcromia, exist at the Cape of Good Hope.

The extensive genus Befjonia, which it is perhaps expe- dient to divide, may be considered as forming a natural order, whose place, however, among the Dicotyledonous families, is not satisfactorily determined. Of BegoniacecB^ no species has yet been observed on the continent of Africa, though several have been found in Madagascar and the Isles of France and Bourbon, and one in the Island of Johanna.

No genus of Laurince, is known to exist in any part of the continent of Africa, except the paradoxical Cassytha, of which the only species in the Congo collection can hardly be distino'uished from that of the West Indies, or from C. pubescens of New Holland. The absence of Laurinoe on the continent of Africa is more remarkable, as several species of Laurus have been found both in TencriiFe and Madeira, and certain other genera belonging to this family exist in jMadagascar and in the Isles of Prance and Bourbon.

Fassijlorece. A few remarkable plants of this order have been observed on the different parts of the west coast of Africa, especially ]\Iodecca of the Hortus Malabaricus and Smeatlnnania, an nnpubhshed genus already mentioned in treating of Homahnse.

MyrsinecB. No species of any division of this order, has been met with in equinoctial Africa, though several of the 465] first section, or ?\Iyrsineoe, properly so called, exist both at the Cape of Good Hope and in the Canary Islands.^

^ Piper ex Guinea, Clus. exot. p. 184, who considers it as not different from the Piper caudatum, figured on the same page, and which is no doubt Piper Cubeba of the Malavan Archipehigo. " Bonplancl Malmais, 151.

3 To the first section belong Mi/rslne, Arcl'ma, and Bladhia. The second, including Emhelia, and perhaps also Olhera of Thunberg, differs from the first nierclv in its corolla being polypctalous. /Egkeras may bo considered as

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