3io 



BOTANICAL GAZETTE [april 



specimen of B. floribunda H. B. K. (in Herb. Mus. Hist. Nat. 

 Paris). 4 An important feature of B. floribunda is its simple leaves, 

 although Kttnth, in the original description, betrayed doubt as to 

 whether tripartite leaves are completely lacking (foliis . . . sim- 

 plicibus, nisi folia inferiora, a me haud visa, in hac quoqae specie 

 ternata sint"). Wright, in describing B. simplicifolia ("a speci- 

 ebus reliquis Austro-Americanis foliis indivisis ovatis acuminatis 

 differt"), was clearly unaware that this same species had already 

 long before been described from the same country (Ecuador) as 

 B. floribunda. An excellent cotype of B. simplicij'olia in the 

 Herbarium of Field Museum has foliage much superior to that 

 of the type. It possesses four pairs of large simple leaves, the 

 lowermost ones 15.2 cm. long and 5.6 cm. wide. From these it 

 would appear even more plausible that the species is constantly 

 simple leaved. 



Bidens alausensis H. B. K., Nov. Gen. 4:184. 1820; Bidens 

 valparadisiaca Colla, Mem. Accad. Torin. 38:12. pi. 24. 1835; 

 Bidens chilensis DC, Prodr. 5:603. 1836.— A study of several 

 authentic specimens of B. c/iilcnsis DC. collected around Quillota, 

 Chile, by Bertero about 1829, shows that these are precisely the 

 same as the type specimen (fig. 1) and Bonpland's private dupli- 

 cate specimen of B. alausensis H. B. K. (both specimens in Herb. 

 Mus. Hist. Nat. Paris). Other specimens, collected at various 

 dates by Gay, W. H. Harvey, Bridges, etc., and all determined 

 as B. chilensis, show that the rays are frequently white, as stated 

 by Bertero (DC, I.e.), instead of yellow, as in DeCandolle's 

 type specimen. 



Regarding B. valparadisiaca Colla we need only to say that it 

 was founded upon Bertero's material, as was DeCandolles B. 



1 The only difference that I can detect is that, in at least its cotype material ex- 

 amined, B. simplicifolia has the exterior involucral bracts mainly subspatulate and 

 only slightly ciliate; in the type of B. floribunda, these are more oblong and more 

 ciliate. While such a variation in shape or size of these bracts has already, in some 

 species, been made the basis for a varietal distinction (e.g., B. rosea aeqaisquama 

 Fernald, Proc. Amer. Acad. 43:68. 1907), such a course would seem undesirable here. 

 Aside from the fact that these bract characters frequently vary, in other better known 

 species of Bidens, from oblong to spatulate on the same head, it would mean the un- 

 welcome use, according to rules, of the name simplicifolia for a variety of a species 

 that itself is f'mple leaved {simplicifolia). 



