[From the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, 3: : 611-615. November, 1904.] 



On Pisonia obtusata and its allies 



N. L. Britton 



Pisonia obtusata was described by Jacquin in Hort. Schoenbr. 

 3:36 (1 798), and figured at pi. 314 of that work ; a detailed de- 

 scription is given of the plant which came from the island of New 

 Providence, Bahamas, "in insula providentiae." Eight years later, 

 in 1806, Swartz in Fl. Ind. Occ. 3: i960, described another Pi- 

 sonia obtusata, which came from the island of Saint Bartholomew, 

 one of the Windward Islands, south of St. Thomas. Grisebach 

 in Fl. Br. W. I., 71, credits the species to Swartz and not to Jac- 

 quin, making no mention of the type locality in the Bahamas, and 

 this blunder is continued by Heimerl in Engler's Bot. Jahrb. 21 : 

 625, in his monograph of West Indian Nyctaginaceac, although 

 he cites Jacquin's original description and figure, placing it, how- 

 ever, after his citation of Swartz. This all goes to show that 

 attention to type localities is desirable. 



In looking over the collections of Bahamian plants made by 

 Professor Coker, during the exploration conducted by the Geo- 

 graphical Society of Baltimore in the summer of 1903, and those 

 made by me in the summer of 1904, I have had occasion to iden- 

 tify the Pisonia obtusata of Jacquin, which is well illustrated by 

 several specimens. 



Contingent upon his error in the proper identification of the 

 species, Heimerl has described {loc. cit.) the Bahama plant as Pisonia 

 calopJiylla, which thus becomes a synonym of P. obtusata Jacq. 



A further part of the history of the misidentification of this 

 species is to be found in the reference of the plant of southern 

 Florida to Pisonia obtusata Sw., by Chapman, South. Fl. 374; 

 by Sargent, Silva, 6: in. pi. 29J, and by Small, Fl. SE. U. S. 

 41 1 ; this has nothing to do with either the Pisonia obtusata of 

 Jacquin or with that of Swartz ; Heimerl has included it in his 

 Pisonia discolor longifoha {loc. cit. 627), making, I believe, a further 

 error in supposing it to be only a form of P. discolor Spreng., the 

 type locality of which is Jamaica. 



611 



