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A Revision of North American Linacese. 



By William Trelease. 



At the suggestion of Dr. Gray, to whom, as well as to Mr. 

 Watson, I am indebted for many courtesies, I have carefully gone 

 over our species of Linum^ with a view to revising them for 

 the Synoptical Flora, and the following arrangement of species, 

 which is believed to be a nearly natural one, is offered to call 

 attention to doubtful and rare species, as well as to facilitate the 

 study of the group, until the publication of the next volume of the 

 Flora. I shall be grateful for any aid that may be afforded by 

 correspondents, in the communication of further specimens or of 

 critical notes.* 



No comprehensive study of our species of Linum has been 

 made since the publication of vol. i. of Torrey & Gray's Flora of 

 North America, in 1838-40, and of a classical monograph of the 

 entire Order by Planchon, in 1847-48.! Dr. Engelmann contrib- 

 uted a revision of the difficult group Linopsis to Gray's Flantae 

 Wrightianae, in 1852. J The Pacific Coast section Hesperolinon^ 

 established by Dr. Gray, in i865,§ and subsequently reviewed by 

 him, II was monographed by Brewer & Watson, 1876-80.^ An 

 enumeration of all our species known in 1878, with full synony- 

 my and bibliographical references, is to be found in Watson's 

 Bibliographical Index to North American Botany, i. 146, 458. 



* My thanks are especially due to Dr. N. L. Britton for the use of specimens belonging 

 to the herbaria of Columbia College, and to Professors A. N. Prentiss and W. R. Dudley 

 for those in the herbarium of Cornell University, during the preparation of this paper, 

 which, however, is based mainly on the specimens of the Gray herbarium of Harvard 

 College. 



t Hooker's Journal of Botany, vi.-vii. 



J Smithsonian Contributions, iii., pt. i, p. 25; reprinted in Collected Botanical Writ 

 ings, p. S'6. 



§ Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts & Sci., vi. 521. || L. c. vii. 3J3. 



IT Botany of California, i. 89; ii. 438. 



