25 
A Revision of the North American species of the genus Cracca. 
By ANNA MurRAyY VAIL. 
The genus Cracca was established by Linnaeus first in Fl. Zey. 
139-141 (1747) and then in Sp. Pl. 752 (1753), the genus being 
based on Cracca Virginiana. In the Sp. Pl. Ed. 2, 1062 (1763) 
it was Galega Virginiana, and after that the synonymy becomes 
more and more complicated and names for the genus appeared in 
quick succession among which are: Co/inil Adans. 1763; Need- 
hamia Scop. 1777; Brissonia Neck. 1790; Reinera Moench, 1802; 
and finally Zephrosia Pers. 1807, under which all the Linnaean 
species of Cracca have been described until 1891, when Kuntze in 
Rev. Gen. Pl. 173 transferred them all to the original generic title. 
Bentham in Oerst. Kjoeb. Vidensk. Meddel, 8 (1853) estab- 
lished a genus Cracca based on a West Indian species, Galega 
Caribaea, Jacq. Am. 212, ¢. 725 (1781). The six known spe- 
cies of which genus have been transferred by Kuntze, Rev. Gen. PI. 
164 to the genus Brittonamra. 
Bentham and Hooker in 1867 gave the number of the spe- 
cies of Tephrosia as 90, of which some 16 are ascribed to 
Africa and America. Taubert, in Engler & Prantl Nat. Pfl. part 
tor: 269 (1894), gives 120 as the total of species, ascribing 
few to America. The following revision is an attempt to 
clearly describe especially the rather difficult Southern State spe- 
cies. As far as is known twelve species are native within the 
boundaries of the United States and two C. purpurea and C. cinerea 
are cosmopolitan plants, the latter known in North America only 
from ballast ground in Alabama. The Mexican and _ tropical 
American species are as yet imperfectly known and are more 
numerous than it is supposed.* 
The genus is accepted as described by Bentham and Hooker, 
a 
under Zephrosia. 
* The following species appears to be undescribed : 
Cracca ScHortir n, sp. = 
Perennial from a somewhat woody base, more or less cinereous or silvery-strigdse 
throughout. Stems branching, angled, 3 dm. or more high, erect or decumbent. sti- 
pules 4-7 mm. long, subulate, persisting; petioles 1-25 cm. SS 4-7 es 
long, obovate-oblong in outline; leaflets 5-7, obovate or obovate-oblong, I~2.5 - 
long, 5-15 mm. wide, retuse, minutely apiculate, strigillose above, silvery or cinereo 
