400 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



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

 or alter the limits ol groups as defined by him. 



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

 Professeur Jean Briquet in " Engler & Prantl's Natttrlicben Plaucen- 

 familien " 1 would be of assistance in preparing this Bynopsis ; but, except 

 for the introduction of somewhat helpful minor divisions of tin- 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 "t 

 the plants he is supposed to be describing, and entirely to mi-lead the 

 student who attempts to follow bis synopsis. In the description <>t the 

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

 vix 3-linearis calyce dimidio vol rarius subduplo longior*' (corolla about 

 3 lines long, once and a half or rarely almost twice as long a- the calyx '. 

 proportions which are maintained almost without exception by the 

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

 krone] kleiu, die Haifa der Lange des Ketches erreichend, seltener '_' 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, kaum die Hcilfte der Lange des Kelches erreichemt" (corolla small, 

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

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

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

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

 lows : "labium patens . . . galea longiw" (lip spreading . . . Ion. 

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

 ausgebreiteter Unterlippe,' diese nicht langer 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 

 Beverj cases merely authentic plates — of 171 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- 



i Engl. & Prantl, Nat. Pflanzenf. iv. Ab. 3, 270-28G. 



