The North American Species of Agrimonia. 



By Eugene P. Bicknell. 

 (Plates 282, 283.) 



Perhaps no one of our long-known plants has more effectually 

 escaped a right understanding by botanists than the familiar 

 Agrimony of the Eastern States, long current in local floras and 

 text-books as Agwiionia Eiipatoria L. This name, it seems, has 

 been doing duty since the beginning of American botany for a 

 considerable group of related species, of which at least five may now 

 be clearly recognized. Nor is this all ; for, as first shown by Dr. 

 Britton (Bull. Torn Club, 18 : 366, 1891), the true Agrimonia E21- 

 paioria is not known at all as an American plant and is very dis- 

 tinct from that particular one of our native species which has been 

 more especially referred to it. 



For the initial fault in this misunderstanding we must go back 

 to " Species Plantarum," wherein, under A. Eupatoria, we find the 

 citation " Gron. Virg.," although the inconsistency follows that 

 the species is attributed to Europe only. Walter seems to have 

 been the first of our writers to adopt the name definitively into 

 the American flora (Fl. Car. 1788), though it isnot now possible to 

 determine the exact sense in which he used it. And so with most 

 subsequent authors the name as used has doubtless a composite 

 significance, though mainly intended to designate our most com- 

 mon and generally distributed species. 



Muhlenberg appears to have been the first to perceive that 

 this plant was not identical with the European and he gave it its first 

 distinctive appellation — hirsj(ta {Cd^t. 47 , 181 3). Muhlenberg, in- 

 deed, seems to have better understood our group of species than 

 any subsequent writer except Wallroth, although he has been 

 quite overlooked, and his name hirs7ita, for our representative spe- 

 cies, which it now becomes necessary to adopt, was afterwards in- 

 dependently used by Torrey for a more hairy form of the same 

 plant. 



The genus Agrimonia, with especial reference to the North 

 American species, may be characterized as follows: 



