A Revision of the Family Fouquieriaceae 
By Grorce V. NASH 
During an attempt to identify one of the species of Fouguieria 
which flowered in the conservatories of the New York Botanical 
Garden during the past June, much confusion was found to exist, 
both in the identification of herbarium material and in the litera- 
ture bearing upon this family. So great was this confusion that 
the writer was eventually compelled to extend his examinations 
beyond the point he had anticipated, and finally realized that a re- 
vision of the family was necessary before any definite results could 
be obtained. No recent treatment, involving a consideration of 
the species, could be found, and the apparent need of such work 
encouraged the author to enter upon the following revision, which, 
it is hoped, will throw some light upon an interesting family and 
one but little understood. As here regarded, it embraces two 
genera and seven species, three of which are here described for the 
first time. 
The relationship of the family is rather puzzling, and a satis- 
factory solution of the difficulty has not as yet been proposed. 
By Bentham and Hooker (Gen. Pl. 1: 161) it was made a tribe 
of Tamaricaceae, and the same treatment was accorded to it by 
Engler and Prantl (Nat. Pfl. 3°: 298). Subsequently Engler — 
(Nat. Pfl. Nachtr. 251) maintained that the family was better kept 
separate from Tamaricaceae on account of its oily endosperm and 
gamopetalous corolla. Its distribution would also tend to confirm 
this distribution of the group, for Tamaricaceae, with Fouquieria- 
ceae removed, is strictly Old World, while Fouquieriaceae itself is 
confined to North America, and primarily to its arid regions. 
While Engler changed the rank of this family, he indicated no 
change in its relationship. It is hardly within the scope of a re- 
vision of this kind to discuss at length a matter of this nature, but 
the strong resemblance in many ways to certain forms of the Pole- 
moniaceae cannot be passed by without some comment. In this 
connection it is well to remember that it was in this family, as a 
Cantua, that the original species was published. The 3-celled 
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