170 



" Paris foliis ternatis, flore sessile erecto. Gron. virg. 44. 

 Solanum virginianum triphyllum, flore tripetalo atropurpureo in 

 foliorum sinu, absque pediculo, sessile. Pluk. aim. 352. t. 1 1 1, f. 6. 

 Solanum triphyllum, flore hexapetalo: tribus petalis purpureis, 

 caeteris viridibus reflexis. Catesb. car. i. p. 50. t. 50." 



The habitat given is " Virginia, Carolina." The first of these 



three descriptions throws little or no light on the subject, but the 



second and third quotations each refer to a plate. A comparison of 



these two plates indicates a great discrepancy, the figure of Plukenet 



representing a small plant with oval leaves, while the Catesby 



drawing illustrates a large robust plant with ovate-lanceolate leaves. 



If only these two plates had to be considered, there would be no 



doubt not only as to there being two distinct species involved, 



but we should have no trouble in deciding to which plant the 



name liillmm sessile must be applied. The first quoted description 



being wholly indefinite, left this important question in doubt. In 



order to settle this point definitely, Dr. Britton sent specimens of 

 both the small and large plants to Mr. Edmund G. Baker, at the 



British Museum, and I can not do better than print his reply : 

 " * * * * We have the Gronovian plant and 

 also a plant in the Plukenet Herbarium, written up by Plukenet, 

 but not the one apparently the figure was done from, as you will see 

 from the tracing I enclose. The Gronovian and Plukenet plants 

 are fairly similar and more like no. 2 (the small plant with oval 

 leaves) than the much larger no. i (the large plant with ovate- 

 lanceolate leaves). Neither of the specimens are particularly 

 good ones, but I have tried to make tracings of them, such as 

 they are, these will show the outline of the leaf if they do 

 nothing else. You may like to have exact measurements of the 

 Plukenet plant : Leaves broadly oval, 2 in. long, breadth ly^ in., 

 sepals I in., petals y-^ in. * * * * ." 



Thus we see that the first and second quoted descriptions in 

 the Species Plantarum are represented by specimens which agree 

 with each other in all essential particulars, while the third quota- 

 tion is founded wholly on a plate, which represents a species totally 

 distinct from that on which the first and second descriptions were 

 founded. Therefore the name Trillmm sessile must be associated 

 with the small oval-leaved plant, and the large plant must receive 

 aname, which will appear in the appended synopsis. The solution 



