330 AN ACCOUNT OF THE GENUS ARGEMONE. 



the fruit, that there is no doubt that Lestiboudois and Hornemann 

 were amply justified in giving it specific rank. The difficulty does 

 not lie in distinguishing it from A. mcxicana, but, as will presently 

 appear, from the other white-flowered Argemones. Its nearest 

 ally is the white-flowered Anjeninite of the Sandwich Islands which 

 Sir William Hooker associated with the white-flowered Aiyernone of 

 Chili, but which, owing to its agreement with the plant charac- 

 teristic of the South-eastern United States in the disposition of its 

 bracts, the shape and size of its sepals, the shape of its petals, and 

 the armature of its capsule — all these being points wherein it 

 dift'ers from the Chilian form — I have ventured, in spite of its 

 larger size, to treat here as a variety of A. alba. The species is 

 also very nearly related to A. (jrandifJora, which, however, differs in 

 having pedicels in the axils of all its floral bracts, so that its cymes 

 become subpaniculate ; in having long sepal-horns, and in having 

 an almost smooth fruit with thick coriaceous valves. A. grandijiura 

 is therefore, at least for the present, probably better left as a species. 



The name A. alba, though, as Lestiboudois published it, merely 

 a name, cannot be allowed to lapse, because at the time that 

 Lestiboudois wrote this was the only white-flowered Aryemone 

 known in Europe — -the next two to appear being A. platyceras, 

 raised in Berlin, and A. grandifiora, raised in London, both in the 

 same year (1827) ; the presumption therefore is altogether in 

 favour of this being the plant intended. This presumption has 

 been, however, as nearly as possible converted into a certainty by 

 the discovery in Mr. Drake del Castillo's herbarium of a specimen 

 of the plant that in Lamarck's herbarium forms the type of A. 

 viexicana var. a. ; cultivated, like Lamarck's type, in the Royal 

 Gardens at Paris, but which had found its way from the herbarium 

 of A. L. de Jussieu into the Herb. Richard. This Jussieuan 

 specimen is marked A. alba Juss. ; Jussieu seems therefore to have 

 been the botanist who first gave specific rank to the form, and it is 

 highly probable that it is only Jussieu's name, not an original 

 one, that Lestiboudois cites. As, however, Jussieu does not seem 

 to have published the name, Lestiboudois must be quoted as the 

 authority for it. It is strange that there is no duplicate of the 

 specimen in Jussieu's own herbarium in Herb. Paris, particularly 

 when we find, what was not to be expected, that it contains a 

 specimen of A. ochruleuca, cultivated at that early date, in the 

 Paris gardens. 



The synonym A. alba Raf. cited by DeCandolle must be excluded 

 from this form, for although Rafinesque described it in his Flora 

 Ludoviciana, he states that his plant is a native of Mexico, only 

 cultivated in gardens in Louisiana, and, as A. alba typica does not 

 occur in Mexico, Rafinesque's plant is not the same as Lestiboudois's. 

 So must the synonym Arqetiione Jiore albo, scppe 3-petalo Haller, PL 

 Goett. 89 (1753); Zinn. PL Guett. 116 (1757). Haller's description 

 suggests a Papaver, and Zinn actually supposes that it may have 

 been Argemone armenaiaca, which is a Papaver. The colour of the 

 flowers is against its having been this particular species, but it is 

 not improbable that it may have been a white-flowered form of 



