866 AN ACCOUNT OF THE GENUS ARGEMONE. 



however, from the true A. alba in the form of its sepals and buds) 

 has also small flowers. 



The name here adopted for the species is not the oldest, since 

 this is the A. alba of James. As, however, that name is preoccupied 

 for the South-eastern United States plant, we must employ the next 

 in point of age. There is an apparent dubiety as regards this name, 

 owing to its having been erroneously reduced by Loudon to A. 

 Barclayana, which is a form of A. ochroleuca. A reference to the 

 original descriptiorj of A. Barclayana shows, however, that it had 

 yellow flowers, and the specimen at Kew named A. Barclayana 

 has flowers of that colour. Sweet's plant, as the reference to that 

 name shows, had white flowers. We find, therefore, that Loudon 

 was making tlie reduction which, under another name, has recently 

 been made by Coulter ; this treatment is parallel to that of the 

 older European authors in the case of A. viexicana proper; just as 

 Lamarck and DeCandolle united, from similarity of habit and in 

 despite of differences in the flowers and fruit, A. mexicaiia and A. 

 alba, so Loudon and Coulter, from the same consideration and in 

 despite of corresponding diflerences, have united the two forms that 

 really are A. ochroleuca and A. intermedia. 



The species was introduced to Europe from Mexico in 1829 or 

 1830 ; its cultivation did not, however, continue. It was again 

 introduced in 1878, and appears to have again been lost ; curiously, 

 the specimens which formed the basis of Bot. Mag. t. 6402, have 

 not been preserved at Kew. That figure, however, and a garden 

 specimen in Herb. Hale, grown at Larepe, in Wisconsin, show that 

 the typical A. intermedia remains as true, under cultivation, to its 

 characters in a wild state as do the other forms of Aryemone. There 

 are also specimens from Illinois in "Herb. Cosson," which I assume 

 to be garden ones ; I have therefore not cited Illinois among the 

 localities in which the species is wild. If they be garden examples, 

 they also show that the plant does not differ under cultivation from 

 the form it assumes in the prairies further west. If the species is 

 wild in Illinois, I cannot find any testimony to this effect in the 

 writings of any American botanist. 



It has to be pointed out to the objection which will be raised as 

 to the reference here of A. platyceras of Watson and Coulter in the 

 sixth edition of Gray's Manual, that the citation is deliberately 

 made, in spite of the fact that their description applies only to A. 

 platyceras var. hispida among the white-flowered forms of Aryemone; 

 the area covered by their work extends westward only to the 100th 

 meridian ; no specimens of the plant they describe from the east of 

 that line have yet reached Europe ; the plant reported from the 

 area they indicate is the one described above ; whatever its true 

 position may be, the description given in the Manual will therefore 

 have to be recast ; it is certainly not A. hispida. What the white- 

 flowered plant included by them under A. viexicana may be it is 

 impossible to say ; its existence at all is unsupported by any 

 specimens in London, Paris, or Geneva. 



6. Argemone PLATYCERAS Link & Otto. Aculeatissima, foiiis 

 glaucescentibus, ramis suberectis cauleque undique densius foliosis 



