TRbooora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 26 February, 1924. No. 302. 
NOTES ON AMERICAN LESPEDEZAS. 
S. F. BLAKE. 
Tuae following notes on bush clovers may be prefaced by a short 
account of the papers which have contributed most materially to 
our knowledge of the American forms of Lespedeza. The first good 
general treatment was that in Torrey and Gray’s “Flora of North 
America.”! In this the importance of the apetalous flowers in 
classification was pointed out for the first time, and the species were 
divided into the two primary groups which have been retained by all 
later writers. The synonymy of several species was corrected on 
the basis of Dr. Gray’s investigations of type material, and a good 
foundation laid for subsequent study of the group. The specific 
units in this treatment were too broadly conceived, however, and the 
improvements introduced in Torrey and Gray’s scheme by later 
authors have been mainly in the direction of a closer delimitation of 
species. | 
For more than half a century little change was made in Torrey and 
Gray’s treatment. Maximowicz’s? revision of the genus, published 
in 1873, followed in general the work of Torrey and Gray for the 
American species. L. violacea and L. reticulata (=L. virginica), 
which had been considered conspecific by Torrey and Gray, were 
separated, L. repens and L. procumbens were united under the name 
L. repens, and L. capitata var. angustifolia Pursh was transferred to 
varietal rank under L. hirta. In 1876 Gray, in connection with the 
1 Fl. N. Amer. 1: 366-369. 1840. 
2 Act. Hort. Petrop. 2: 327-388. 1873. 
3 Proc. Amer. Acad. 12: 57. 1876. 
