500 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [june 



ill-advised names, so long apparently enigmatic to botanists, is 

 clearly reducible to synonomy. 



Bidens humilis H.B.K. Nov. Gen. 4:234. 1820. — Bidens 

 decomposita hirsutior C. B. Clarke, Compos. Ind. 141. 1876. 



Clarke described his variety hirsutior from a single specimen 

 collected by himself at an altitude of over 2200 m. in the Nilgiri 

 Mountains of India. Later, he informed J. D. Hooker (cf. Fl. 

 Brit. Ind. 3:310. 1881) that he supposed it to be some cultivated 

 plant. Hooker admits having seen no specimen of it, but it 

 happens that Clarke's own original specimen ("11 207 .... 23 

 March 1870 .... coll. C. B. Clarke . . . .") was sent to Kew 

 Herbarium in 1877 and is still there in good condition. The plant 

 is very different from Bidens decomposita Wall., but differs from cer- 

 tain South American specimens of the highly variable B. humilis 

 H.B.K. only in being rather villous. Yet in the same region Dr. 

 Watt collected material {Watt 2160, Metapollium, Nilgiri Hills, 

 Southern India, up to nearly 1000 m., June 1876, in Herb. Kew) 

 that agrees with Clarke's specimen except that it is minutely 

 pubescent as to leaves and glabrous as to stems. And, most for- 

 tunately, still two more specimens from this region occur (Dr. 

 TJ/omson, Eclipse Exped., Nilgiris, December 1871, determined on 

 sheet as "Bidens humilis H.B.K.," in Herb. Kew; and R. II. 

 Bcddomc 4511, "introd. ? a common weed," Nilgiris, in Herb. Brit. 

 Mus.), both glabrous and indistinguishable from B. humilis. A 

 study of these several specimens, all collected in the same region at 

 about the same time, and by two of the collectors suspected of being 

 introduced, shows beyond doubt that they were merely forms of B. 

 humilis H.B.K. brought, perhaps in ballast, from South America to 

 the southwest shores of British India. 5 



Bidens crithmifolia H.B.K. Nov. Gen. 4:234. 1820. — Bidens 

 delphinifolia H.B.K. loc. cit. 



The two type specimens from which Kunth described B. crith- 

 mifolia and B. delphinifolia are still extant in good condition (in 

 Herb. Mus. Hist. Nat. Paris) . They differ only in the slightly diverse 



5 Since the above was written, I have had access to the very recent work of Fyson 

 (Fl. Nilgiri and Pulney Hill-lops above 6500 feet 1 : 237. 1015). It is most interesting 

 to find that Fyson, though omitting historical details, lists B. humilis from South 

 America as an introduction into the Nilgiri Hill region, thus adding unique corrobora- 

 tion to my own conclusions presented above. 



