T2 LEAFLETS. 
-” K. PARVIFOLIA. In habit near the last, but abundantly 
leafy with mostly deltoid ovate entire leaves only ł to } inch 
long, not coriaceous, smooth and glandular-punctate beneath ; 
cymes sessile, surpassed by slender leafy-bracted branchlets : 
bracts of involucre biserial, oblong-lanceolate, acute, pubescent: 
flowers pinkish: achenes scaberulous and glandular. 
Also from near Saltillo, Palmer (n. 289 in U. S. Herb.), also 
called Æ. calaminthefolium, though most distinct, and with 
copious small leaves recalling those of Mitchella repens. | 
The history of what has lately begun to be called Eupatorium 
capiliifolium is uncommonly replete with interest. In aspect it 
is so exceedingly unlike the rest of the Eupatoriacex, and so 
completely imitates Artemzisza, that when early in the eighteenth 
century it became known in Europe the botanists all called it a 
new Artemisia, Dillenius leading the way in 1732, Lamarck in 
1784 being perhaps the last author to continue it under that 
genus; Walter in 1785 being the first to pronounce it an Eng 
torium ; this disposal of it being adopted by Willdenow in 1808, 
the celebrated author of Michaux’s Florain the same year trans- 
ferring the type to the Asteraceous genus Chrysocoma, 
When conservative authorities are at such extremes of disa- 
greement as to the generic status of a type, the end of contro- 
versy about it is apt to be reached by conceding to it the rank 
of a genus; and this, for the type in question appears to have 
been proposed by Wallroth in 1822. His paper I have not seen, 
but only very authentic citations of it. He named the plant 
TRAGANTHES TENUIFOLIA ; and yet, within some five or six years 
thereafter, Cassini, the most accomplished and at the same time 
the least conservative of nineteenth century synantherologists, 
for some reason declines Wallroth’s very rational proposition, 
and proceeds to assign it a place under Mikania, calling it M. 
artemisioides; acknowledging that it fits the place not at all well, 
and failing to give any good reason for overruling the judg- 
ment of Wallroth. 
The group is a small one, but so strongly marked in habit, 
that I have no doubt of its ultimately being accepted as a genus, 
under the name TRAGANTHES, the species over and above the . 
