North American Plants. SI 



A second species of the genus was shortly after received in a 

 collection of plants gathered by Dr. Gates in Alabama, speci- 

 mens of which were distributed by me under the generic name 

 of Macranthera ; but before I was prepared to publish my ac- 

 count of the new genus, it was described by Mr. Nuttall in the 

 Journal of the Academy of Philadelphia,* under the name of 

 Conradta fuschioklcs, that learned botanist not being aware that 

 a genus belonging to the order Gesneriacea3,t had already 

 been called Conradia by Martius, and hence Mr. Bentham, 

 in his revision of the genera of Scrophularinea?,t has adopted 

 my name, which he found in Dr. Lindlcy's herbarium, but, 

 by mistake, quotes it as Mr. Nuttall's. In the recent Synop- 

 sis of the Gerardieae, published in the Companion to the Bo- 

 tanical Magazine, edited by Sir W. J. Hooker, this error is 

 corrected. 



Macranthera belongs to the tribe Gerardiece of Bentham, 

 in the order Scrophularinea3, and differs from Gerardia in its 

 deeply parted calyx, tubular corolla with a small spreading 

 border, and in the much exserted stamens. In the elongated 

 stamens it resembles Esterhazya,|| but in that genus the calyx 

 is only 5-toothed, and the corolla tubular-campanulate: the 

 habit also is very different. Like nearly all the plants of the 

 tribe Gerardieee, both species of Macranthera turn black in 

 drying. Mr* Bentham was only acquainted with M. fuschl- 

 oidcs, in which the segments of the calyx are longer than the 

 tube of the corolla, a character which he has introduced into 

 his definition of the genus ; but in M. Lcconlli the calyx is 

 scarcely one-third the length of the corolla ; so that the generic 

 character must be somewhat modified. 



* Vol. vii. p. 88, t. ii. and xii. 



t Nova gen. et. sp. &c, a work which had not reached this country at the 

 date of Mr. Nuttall's publication. 



t Published in the Botanical Register for June, 1835. 



II Esterhazya of Mikan., and Bentli. in Hook. romp. hot. mag. p. 203 ; Virgu- 

 laria, Martius Nov. gen. et. sp. 3, p . ; Gerardia § Dargcria, Cham, and 

 Schlcchl. (not of Bcnth ) 



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