134 ERYTHEA. 



this elevated area. An examination of the abundant and 

 wonderfully mixed herbarium -materials that are held under 

 the name R. Californica, has disclosed the presence of a new 

 Rhamnus of the typical group, which as far as known, belongs 

 to the mountains of the southern part of Colorado. This is 

 3. E. Smithii, Greene, Pitt. iii. 17. Related to the east- 

 ern R. lanceolata, this is a most interesting shrub ; and it is 

 not improbable that future research may considerably widen 

 its known range. The regions, in which it should be further 

 sought, are those parts of New Mexico and Utah, which are 

 most nearly adjacent to Southern Colorado. 



By far the greater proportion of our species belong to what 

 must at the least be recognized as the subgenus Frangula. 

 This group was formerly everywhere received in the rank of 

 a genus. Linnaeus, the father of unnatural and unbotanical 

 botany combined it with Rhamnus ; yet the ablest men 

 among his contemporaries, such as Haller, Miller, Adanson, 

 Necker and Moench^ reaffirmed for Frangiila the status of a 

 genus. And some fifty years ago^^such men, as Brongniart, 

 Bennett and Asa Gray^were champions of the same opinion. 

 The author last named, in the middle of his career, and in 

 that most carefully and critically done of all his works, the 

 Genera Illustraia, says of Frangula, that it "is surely dis- 

 tinct from Rhamnus" and concedes to it that rank. Per- 

 haps it may have been the authoritative pronouncement of 

 Mr. Bentham in 1862, which turned the tide again in favor 

 of the Linnsean view^ and led even Dr. Gray to recede from 

 his earlier position^ and to restore the Frangula species to 

 the genus Rhamnus in the later editions of his Manual. 

 When I say of Mr. Bentham's pronouncement, that it was 

 authoritative, I mean that it was arbitrary ^and not based in 

 reason. The two assumed reasons given by him are not rea- 

 sons. When he says,,that the two groups are alike in habit 

 and inflorescence, he is in error as to the facts. The two 

 types are so different in habit, that field -botanists everywhere 

 recognize the difference; and most of those, who have main- 

 tained the two genera, have been men, who were accustomed 



