The Origin of Crepis and Related Genera 39 



has some afiinity with certain African species of Catonia; sube- 

 rostris, an endemic annual of Algeria; and leontodontoides, a 

 less primitive perennial of Italy and southern France. 



The 8-chromosome Eucrepis species comprise several distina 

 groups, x^vo of which have already been mentioned in connec- 

 tion with chromosome morphology. One of these, the oreades- 

 Suffieniana series, may have originated from a lo-chromosome 

 ancestral stock because there is a certain amount of affinity for 

 the 40-chromosome species, biennis and ciliata, which are oao- 

 ploids with 5 as base number. The evidence on distribution is in 

 harmony with this idea. C. biennis is distributed from western 

 Asia to western Europe and southward to southern Russia and 

 the middle Balkans; C. ciliata occurs in the Caucasus region. C. 

 oreades and Robertioides 2J^ woody-based alpine perennials, the 

 former from middle Asia, the latter from Syria. C. nicaeensis 

 occurs sporadically from the Balkan Peninsula to the Pyrenees; 

 lector iim is distributed throughout most of Europe and the 

 greater part of Siberia; capillaris is found in southern and mid- 

 dle Europe and eastward to southern Ukraine and Crimea; 

 parviflora occurs from the eastern Balkans throughout Asia 

 Minor to Egypt and the Caucasus; neglecta and its close allies 

 are distributed from southern France to Asia Minor, Greece, and 

 Crete. Likewise, the gymnopus-pterothecoides group, taken as a 

 whole, ranges from Japan to Spain and from middle Russia to 

 Palestine, with five of the ten species occurring in Syria. 



The other two groups of 8-chromosome Eucrepis species are 

 foimd in certain parts of the same general region. C. pannomca, 

 lacera, and chondrilloides are very closely related species, and 

 their distribution is in agreement ^^-ith the morphological evi- 

 dence of relative age. C. pannonica is certainly the most primi- 

 tive and is distributed from Hungary to southern Russia, lacera 



