APRIL, 1919. XANTHIUM MILLSPAUGH AND SHERFF. 21 



from attacking the status of X. chinense in a more than cursory 

 way. 1 



Fortunately for our purpose, however, there appeared in 1771, the 

 year of Philip Miller's death (fide Pritzel, Thesaurus 218. 1872) and 

 three years subsequent to the appearance of the eighth edition of The 

 Gardener's Dictionary, an Abridgement of Miller's Gardener's Dic- 

 tionary, sixth edition. 2 In this abridgment, Miller introduced X. 

 chinense from his Gardener's Dictionary, eighth edition, retaining the 

 same peculiar description 3 but omitting the word China. As we search 

 his supplementary text, we find a most interesting statement: "The 

 fourth sort [X. chinense] was discovered by the late Dr. Houston in 

 the year 1730, growing naturally at La Vera Cruz." 



Now it happens that in 1906, Dr. J. M. Greenman spent some time 

 collecting in the neighborhood of Vera Cruz (Mexico) for Field Museum 

 and, during the course of his work, collected specimens of Xanthium 

 (Greenman 47) the fruits of which we find to match Miller's description 

 strikingly. The prickles are not strongly inbent, as in the X. orientale L. 

 that Miller knew, but erect ("erectis"). Nor are they short, as in the 

 X. strumarium L. known to Miller, but, by comparison, very long 

 ("longissimis "). 



It appears to us to be beyond all doubt that Miller had made the 

 acquaintance of this species in the prime of his life, during the period of 

 his greater literary activity, but had not published it; that late in life 

 when seventy-seven years of age (fide Pritzel, Thesaurus 218. 1872), 

 he published an accurate though short Latin description under the 

 name X. chinense, thinking that to it belonged various Chinese speci- 

 mens sent to him; and that finally, just before his death, he realized 

 his mistake in having referred Chinese specimens to the species and so, 

 with a view to clarity, actually stated that the original specimens came 

 from Vera Cruz. 



An examination of the Greenman plants, which we may well take as 

 representing X. chinense, shows them to be the same species that grows 

 very commonly throughout the West Indies and which Bertoloni 



1 Wallroth (Beitr. Bot. i n : 223. 1844) equated X. chinense with his X. dis- 

 color, which was a segregate from X. stramarium L. But Wallroth expressly stated 

 for his X. discolor that the prickles were short ("kurz und abstehend eingebogene 

 Stacheln")f whence it appears that he entirely ignored the character "longissimis" 

 given by Miller. 



1 Regarding the extreme rarity of this work, see Thellung (Verhandl. Bot. Verein 

 Brandenb. 50: 144. 1908). We have been fortunate in securing excellent copies 

 of the pertinent portions from the volume in the Library of the Arnold Arboretum, 

 handwritten for us by the Librarian, Miss Ethelyn M. Tucker. 



1 Miller dropped the word ramosa after caule inermi and added the word simplici- 

 bus after erectis. 



