GYMNOLOMIA PORTHRI. 



STONE-MOUNTAIN STAR. 



NATURAL ORDER, COMPUSIT/E. (ASTERACE.K OF LINDLEV ) 



GvMNOLOMiA PoRTERl, Gray. — Rough, with short, sc.ittcrcd hairs; stem panicuhitely 

 branclied ; leaves lanceolate, entire, narrowed at each end, fringed at the base ; exterior 

 scales of the involucre linear, as long as the disk ; the interior shorter, resembling the 

 chaff of the receptacle ; rays seven to nine, longer than the disk ; stem two to three feet 

 high. (Chapman's Flora of the Southern United States, under tlie name of Ridibeckia ? 

 J\irlcri. ) 



HE plate which accompanies this chapter is probably the 

 first illustration ever published of the Gymnolomia Por- 

 teri, a jjlant which, although it is a native of one of the older 

 settled States of the Union, will not be found noticed under this 

 name in any popular work on American botany. In Dr. Chap- 

 man's " Flora," from which we have taken our description, the 

 plant is noted as Rudbcckia? Porteri ; and the question-mark 

 affixed to the generic name proved to be a wise precaution, as 

 Dr. Gray, who first named the species, found it necessary, on 

 further examination, to remove it to the genus Gymnolomia., 

 which has its principal home in Bogota and New Granada. 

 This latter genus was established by Humboldt, Bonpland, and 

 Kunth in their " New Genera of American Plants," published in 

 Paris during the first quarter of this century. Dr. Gray describes 

 our present species more particularly as Gymnolomia Porteri 

 in the " Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and 

 Sciences" for 1876, suggesting, at the same time, that it is 

 probably identical with Hcliomcris, another American genus, 

 established by Nuttall. Our species, however, differs widely 

 from Heliomeris in the form of the corolla of the disk florets, 



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