490 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



more material at hand it has been necessary in many cases to amplify 

 or alter tlie limits of groups as defined by him. 



It was hoped that tlie treatment of the genus published by M. le 

 Professeur Jean Briquet in " Engler & Prantl's Natlirlicheu Planzen- 

 familien " ^ would be of assistance in preparing this synopsis ; but, except 

 for the introduction of somewhat helpful minor divisions of the groups,- 

 that work adds little to the earlier conclusions of Bentham. In fact, so 

 far at least as the Mexican species are concerned, Professor Briquet's 

 translations of Bentham's sectional and subsectional diagnoses are most 

 unfortunate, often so far so as quite to contradict the true characters of 

 the plants he is supposed to be describing, and entirely to mislead the 

 student who attempts to follow his synopsis. In the description of the 

 very first group, the § Micranthae, for example, Bentham says : " Corolkx 

 vix S-Iiuearis calyce dimidio vel rarius suhduplo longior^^ (corolla about 

 3 lines long, once and a half or rarely almost twice as long as the calyx), 

 proportions which are maintained almost without exception by the 

 species of that section. Yet this is rendered by Briquet " Blkr. [Blumen- 

 krone] klein, die Hdlfte der Ldnge des Kelches erreichend, seltener 2 mal 

 grosser " (corolla small, half the length of the calyx, rarely twice longer) 

 although the species which constitute the section have the corolla as 

 defined by Bentham. Briquet's description of the § Microsphaceae, in- 

 cluded by Bentham in the Prodromus under § Micranthae, reads : " Blkr. 

 klein, ^-aMm die Hdlfte der Ldnge des Kelches erreichend" (corolla small, 

 scarcely half as long as the calyx), thus suggesting plants with the calyx 

 definitely exceeding the corolla, instead of the species, enumerated by 

 him, with the corolla distinctly exceeding the calyx. Again in the 

 § Brachyanthae Bentham describes the lower lip of the corolla as fol- 

 lows : " labium patens . . . galea longius " (lip spreading . . . longer 

 than the galea), while Briquet, rendering it into German says "... 

 ausgebreiteter Unterlippe, diese nicht liinger als die Oberlippe " (. . . 

 the spreading lower lip, this not longer than the upper lip [galea]), thus 

 absolutely contradicting the character of the corolla as shown by the 

 species included by him in the section. 



Of the 217 Salvias recognized in the present paper, specimens — or in 

 seven cases merely authentic plates — of 174 species have been ex- 

 amined. Of the remaining 43 species very many, although well 

 described, were unknown to Bentham and have not been identified with 

 recently collected material. Others recognized by Bentham as of doubt- 



1 Engl. & Prantl, Nat. Pflanzenf. iv. Ab. 3, 270-286. 



