296 Robinson: Further Notes on the Agrimonies 



original description of A. striata Michx. It is as follows : A. spiels 



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virgatis : fruetibus reflexis, tnrbinatis, suleato-striatis, apice tantum 

 et quasi coronatim hispidis. Flores albidi. Hab. in Canada. 



To anyone who knows our agrimonies it will, I think, be 

 quite clear which was meant. The turbinate form of the fruit at 

 once cuts out the hemispherical-fruited species which has been 

 passing as A. striata, as do also to some extent the words sulcato- 

 striatis, since this trait must have been a pronounced feature in the 

 Michauxian plant to have suggested the specific name. In A. 

 gryposepala and the tomentose species the fruit is seldom if ever 

 so strongly deflexed as to suggest the name reflexis, nor would 

 it have been described as covered with bristles only at the summit* 

 It is, therefore, clear that the description applies only to A. Brit- 

 toniana and that it fits this in all respects except as to Flores albidi, 

 a very pardonable slip upon the part of Richard (no personalities 

 intended), early corrected by Dr. Gray. 



As I have stated in Rhodora the type of A. striata is in ex- 

 istence and well preserved. It is an exact match for Mr. Fernald's 

 plant from St. Francis, Maine, which in its turn is the first men- 

 tioned type of A. Brittoniana. The Michauxian type is labeled A. 

 striata, Canada, in the hand of Michaux, and it is against this 

 specimen that Dr. Gray has written in his unmistakable hand A. 

 Eupatoria f. minor. It is "to be remembered, however, that this 

 was done at a time when most of our American agrimonies were 

 grouped together as A. Enpatoria and some decades before a keen- 

 sighted investigator had pointed out after special study of much 

 material both in the field and herbarium the characters which now 

 clearly distinguish the plants in question. Such a determination, 

 even by Dr. Gray, can scarcely have great weight when we con- 

 sider that he was engaged in looking up hundreds of other matters 

 and had never devoted special attention to the habitally similar 

 species of Agrinionia. There is, however, another plant in the 

 Michaux herbarium which, as it does not affect the identity of the 

 type had, at least as to its locality, escaped my recollection until 



i — r — ■ — - ■ i i ^^^, - , ^^ M ^^nw i i m m n .._■■■■_ jj_i__iM " n M „h_i__li ■ jj-mti^ ■ - _i_i_ ^_^_u 



*It is to be noticed that Michaux used the expression " apice tantum et quasi 

 coronatim hispidis" in contradistinction to the " fructibus divaricato- hispidis of his A. 

 Eupatoria which, although a mixture of A. parvijlora Ait., and A. incisa Gray, 

 shows clearly how Michaux would have described the very similar and also widely 

 spreading bristles of A. gryposepala. 



