1919] Standley,— A neglected Solidago Name . 69 
A NEGLECTED SOLIDAGO NAME: 
PauL C. STANDLEY. 
ONE of the earliest books of travel relating to the United States, 
is one entitled “Reise durch einige der mittlern und südlichen verein- 
igten nordamerikanischen Staaten nach Ost-Florida und den Bahama- 
Inseln, unternommen in den Jahren 1783 und 1784," by Johann David 
Schoepf, published at Erlangen in 1788. An English translation by 
Alfred J. Morrison was printed at Philadelphia in 1911. 
Schoepf was a Bavarian who had studied botany at the University 
of Erlangen under Schreber, who later named in his honor the genus 
Schoepfia, a group of tropical trees and shrubs of the family Olacaceae. 
He came to New York in 1777 as chief surgeon of the Ansbach con- 
tingent of the German troops sent over by George III. He remained 
in New York until the conclusion of the war, upon which he under- 
took a tour of the United States, which, beginning in New Jersey, 
extended to western Pennsylvania, southeastward through Maryland 
to what is now the District of Columbia, and southward TRE the 
coast to Florida, whence he sailed to the Bahamas. 
The two volumes of the Reise give a vivid picture of the political 
and physical conditions of the coastal states at that time. Schoepf 
was interested in all branches of natural history but gave his chief 
attention to the geology of the regions traversed. He made many 
observations upon animals and plants, and in footnotes he published 
descriptions of two new species of plants, one a Houstonia, the other a 
Solidago. His names for these were taken up'by Gmelin in his edition 
of Linnaeus's Systema Naturae, but they have received no attention 
from other authors. ' Although both are listed in the Index Kewensis, 
they are credited to Gmelin and his work is given as the place of pub- 
lication. While the present writer was engaged in a monographie 
account of the family Rubiaceae for the North American Flora, his 
attention was called to Schoepf's book by Dr. J. H. Barnhart, and 
as a result it was found necessary to adopt Houstonia pusilla Schoepf 
as the valid name for the species hitherto known as H. patens Ell? 
The Solidago mentioned above is discussed by Schoepf on page 466 
1 Published by permission of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 
? N. Amer. Fl. xxxii. 29 (1918). 
