0901] — Robinson, — Gnaphalium plantaginifolium II 
THE IDENTITY OF THE LINNAEAN GNAPHALIUM 
PLANTAGINIFOLIU M. 
B. L. ROBINSON. 
PERHAPS none of the recent segregations among American flow- 
ering plants has been more surprising in extent and interest than the 
division of Antennaria plantaginea, R. Br. (A. plantaginifolia, 
Hook.). Long regarded as a single variable species, this polymor- 
phous plant, familiar in our spring flora, has, upon close scrutiny, 
fallen into many rather well-marked and tolerably distinct species. 
Thanks to the observations and publications of Prof. Greene and 
Messrs. Fernald, Rydberg, and E. Nelson, the characteristics and 
affinities of the newly recognized forms are already pretty well known, 
yet, as in all such cases, the actual identity of the original type must 
be settled before the subsequently described segregates can have a 
fixed or definite status. In this instance the central species and his- 
toric type of the group rests upon the Linnaean Gnaphalium pian- 
taginifolium, published in the Species Plantarum in 1753, and since 
the subdivision, no one has, I believe, been in a position to do more 
than guess at the identity of the Linnaean type. This has been due 
in part to the brevity and general nature of the original description, 
but chiefly to the lack of authenticated specimens upon this side of 
the Atlantic where the chief knowledge of the segregates exists. 
The first supposition regarding the Linnaean type was that of Prof. 
Greene, who regarded it as probably the plant (with leaves glabrous 
above) which he later described as A. arnoglossa. Mr. Fernald, on 
the other hand, regarded it as the commonest of the large-leaved 
Antennarias, a species which has a white flocculent pubescence upon 
the upper, as well as a denser, firmer pubescence on the lower sur- 
face of the leaves. This plant has been described by Prof. Greene 
as A. decipiens. 
Last September I had an opportunity, while in London, to ex- 
amine the extant material of the original Gnaphalium plantagini- 
` folium, and found it to be a mixture. To. make clear the relation of 
its elements, it will be best to reproduce the treatment in the first 
edition of the Species Plantarum. It is as follows: 
Gnaphalium caule simplissimo, foliis radicalibus ovatis maximis, sarmen- 
tis procumbentibus. 
