New Holland, and of which the
two former have hitherto been observed only, along with it, on the shores
of King George's Sound.

The striking resemblance of Kingia, in caudex and leaves, to
Xanthorrhoea, cannot fail to suggest its affinity to that genus also.
Although this affinity is not confirmed by a minute comparison of the
parts of fructification, a sufficient agreement is still manifest to
strengthen the doubts formerly expressed of the importance of those
characters, by which I attempted to define certain families of the great
class Liliaceae.

In addition, however, to the difference in texture of the outer coat of
the seed, and in those other points, on which I then chiefly depended in
distinguishing Junceae from Asphodeleae, a more important character in
Junceae exists in the position of the embryo, whose radicle points always
to the base of the seed, the external umbilicus being placed in the axis
of the inner or ventral surface, either immediately above the base as in
Kingia, or towards the middle, as in Xerotes.

OBS. 3.

ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIMPREGNATED OVULUM IN PHAENOGAMOUS PLANTS.

The description which I have given of the Ovulum of Kingia, though
essentially different from the accounts hitherto published of that organ
before fecundation, in reality agrees with its ordinary structure in
Phaenogamous plants.

I shall endeavour to establish these two points; namely, the agreement of
this description with the usual structure of the Ovulum, and its
essential difference from the accounts of other observers, as briefly as
possible at present; in tending hereafter to treat the subject at greater
length, and also with other views.

I have formerly more than once* adverted to the structure of the Ovulum,
chiefly as to the indications it affords, even before fecundation, of the
place and direction of the future Embryo. These remarks, however, which
were certainly very brief, seem entirely to have escaped the notice of
those authors who have since written on the same subject.

(*Footnote. Flinders Voyage 2 page 601, and Linnean Society Transactions
12 page page 136.)

In the Botanical Appendix to the account of Captain Flinders' Voyage,
published in 1814, the following description of the Ovulum of Cephalotus
follicularis is given: Ovulum erectum, intra testam membranaceam
continens sacculum pendulum, magnitudine cavitatis testae, and in
reference to this description, I have in the same place remark