CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE GRAY HERBARIUM OF HARVARD 

 UNIVERSITY. NEW SERIES, No. XLVII. 



A REVISION OF THE GENUS POLYGALA IN MEXICO, 

 CENTRAL AMERICA, AND THE WEST INDIES. 



By S. F. Blake. 



Of the some 137 species of Polygala now definitely known from 

 Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies (including the Lesser 

 Antilles and Trinidad), only three were known to Linnaeus from 

 this area. A fourth plant, described by Linnaeus as P. diversifolia, 

 has always been considered a member of the section or genus Ba- 

 diera, although its status has never been definitely established, but 

 examination of the type specimen in the Hortus ClifTortianus au- 

 thorizes its reference to the synonymy of Securidaca volubilis L. 



The first really noteworthy contribution to the knowledge of 

 Middle American Polygalas was made in the Nova Genera of Hum- 

 boldt, Bonpland, & Kunth, where six new species were described 

 from Central America and Mexico, and six others, later to be re- 

 corded from this area, from South America. Here for the first time 

 satisfactory descriptions were given of the species of this difficult 

 genus. Nearly all the previously described species had been so in- 

 adequately defined that their recognition from description alone is 

 well-nigh impossible, and the same is true of the new species con- 

 tained in the first volume of the Prodromus (1824), and to a less 

 extent of those published by Presl, Chamisso, and Schlechtendal 

 from 1830 to 1840. In 1852 Gray published critical notes and de- 

 scriptions of several new species, based chiefly on Wright's Texan- 

 New Mexican collection. Five years later Seemann, recording the 

 species of the voyage of the Herald, fell into an unfortunate excess 

 of over-reduction of specific names, synonymizing with Mexican 

 species unrelated ones of South America, and in one case lumping 

 under one trivial specific names representing at least nine species 

 of two quite distinct subgenera. Otto Kuntze in 1891, dealing with 

 much the same groups of species, fell into equally absurd errors. 1 



In 1879 A. W. Bennett published in the Journal of Botany an 

 important series of papers dealing with the Polygalas of North and 



1 See Kuntze, Rev. Gen. i. 48-49 (1891); Chod. Bull. Herb. Boiss. iii. 128 



(1895). 



