A Preliminary List of the Species of tiie Genus Meibomia, Heist., 

 occurring in the United States and British America. 



By Anna M. Vail. 



The genus Hedysanmt in Linnaeus' Genera Plantarum, ed. i. 

 225, published in 1737, and referred by him to Tournefort, com- 

 prised Onobrychis, Hedysariim, Alhagi and Meibomia. The 

 first reference to Meibomia, as distinct from Hedysarum, that I 

 have found is in the second edition of Ludvvig's Definitiones 

 Generum Plantarum, 156, (1747). I have not access to the first 

 edition of that work. According to Dr. Otto Kuntze, the genus 

 was founded by Mohring (Hort. Priv. 65, 1736), and referred by 

 him to Heister one year ahead of the Linnsean Genera Plantarum. 



According to the same author it was used by Manetti in 175 i 

 and by Fabricius in 1753, and to these it may be added by Ad- 

 anson (Fam. PL ii. 509) in 1763. Siegesbeck called it Hedysar- 

 odes in 1736, but I have not found that name used subsequent to 



1737- 



St. Hilaire named the genus Pleicrolobtis in 1812, and Phyl- 



lodium and Desmodium, Desvaux, appeared in 1S13. 



The genus Desmodiiim was elaborated by DeCandolle in the 

 second volume of the Prodromus in 1825, and the North Amer- 

 ican species of the genus in the first volume of Torrey & Gray's 

 Synoptical Flora in 1838, and they have been followed by all re- 

 cent writers. 



Thirty-nine species are enumerated in this list, which is an 

 attempt to straighten out the rather complicated synonymy of 

 the genus. The species of the Southwestern States are as yet 



