320 Gleason: Studies on West Indian Vernonieae 



Species-group Sagraeanae 



This group is distinguished at once from other West Indian 

 species by the large glabrous achenes. The leaves also are usually 

 thick and firm or coriaceous, entire or with spinulose teeth. Most 

 of the species have been in the past poorly represented in American 

 herbaria, and some of them have been seldom collected since their 

 original discovery. 



In the revision, Vernonia rigida Sw. and Vernonia fruticosa 

 (L.) Sw. were regarded as identical and referred to this group, to 

 which the name Rigidae was applied. Since that time, specimens 

 of V. fruticosa have again been collected, and the species is seen 

 to belong to a different group. The Jamaican V. rigida, also, is 

 described with pubescent achenes, a character which removes it 

 at once from this group. 



In 1836 De Candolle described V. Sagraeana from Cuba, the 

 first known species of the group. This was followed in 1850 by 

 V. Valenzuelana of Richard. In 1863 Schultz examined the recent 

 Cuban collections of Wright, and added three species, leptoclada, 

 inaequis errata and Wrightii, and a fourth, Sprengeliana, based on a 

 plant collected by Bertero in Santo Domingo. Grisebach added 

 a variety, inaequiserrata angustifolia, also collected by Wright in 

 Cuba. That left the group with seven species and one variety, 

 and, so far as known to the writer, no authentic collection of any 

 of these was made or at least recognized for forty years. Further 

 difficulty was added by the confusion of numbers of some of 

 Wright's collections, so that at least two different species have 

 masqueraded in herbaria under wrong names. One case of this 

 confusion was recognized in 1906 by Gleason, who remedied it by 

 the description of V. viminalis. 



Since 1906, the collectors of the New York Botanical Garden, 

 in their diligent explorations of Cuba, have recollected four of these 

 old, imperfectly known species, and have added three entirely 

 new forms, which are here described. 



The group as a whole is one of the most easily recognized of 

 all the West Indian species. It is characterized especially by a 

 high involucre and by large, glabrous, obscurely ribbed achenes, 

 with a prominent basal callus, and the large, firm or rigid leaves. 



