260 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



with depressed back surrounded by a wing or marj^in which at maturity 

 is rellexed or revohite, and its teeth or laciniu? when present not glo- 

 chidiute (although the disk is sometimes so), would ajipear to be the 

 essential characters of Oniphahdes. 



Eritrichium, Schrad., was founded upon the European Myosotis nana 

 of Villars, and the generic name is appropriate. Schrader gave no 

 character except that the carpophore at maturity is " conica vel hemi- 

 sphtcrico-conica," and the genus was first characterized by Gaudin and 

 by Koch. The younger Reichenbach in the Icones Fl. Germanicse 

 notes its extreme nearness to OmphaJodes, but distinguishes it mainly 

 by the somewhat doubled fornices of the corolla. It really appears to 

 be a good Omphalodes. Reichenbach's figures represent the short 

 attachment of the nutlets as nearly central ; that of Spenner, in Gen. 

 Fl. Germ. 111., as intra-basal. The oblique position of the half-grown 

 nutlets is well shown in the recent plate in Bot. Mag. t. 5853. A 

 full examination of the fruit and flowers of this species and the other 

 true or dorsally appendaged Eritrichin convinces me that they should 

 be referred to Omphalodes, from which they may be somewhat indefi- 

 nitely distinguished as a section. The obviously excessive develop- 

 ment of the genus Eritrichium in quite another direction began with 

 the De Candolles in the Prodromus, was first followed by my ven- 

 erated associate Dr. Torrey, was carried further by myself in Proc. 

 Am. Acad. x. 55, &c., and was adopted by Bentham in the Genera 

 Plantarum, but with the excision of two Candollean sections, one of 

 them referred to Mertensia, the other {Endogonia) re-established as 

 the genus Trigouotis, Stev. As I am responsible for the suppression 

 of Fischer and Meyer's two genera, Knjnitzhia and Plogiohothrys, I 

 must now make amends by reinstating them and giving them the 

 full development which they may rightfully claim. Although they 

 make some near approaches to neighboring genera and to each other, 

 yet, on the whole, they are as distinct as are most genera of Borra- 

 ginecB^ and we cannot do without them. As to true Eritrichium, tliose 

 who may not accept its reduction to a subgenus of Omphalodes will 

 probably agree to the proposed limitation of the group. 



Krynitzkia, Fischer & Meyer, has the nutlets always attached by 

 the inner side of the base, or from this upward in various degrees, 

 even to the apex, on separation leaving a clean naked scar, or a scar 

 narrowing into a groove, or sometimes a narrow groove only. And 

 between these there are all gradations. The nutlets are naked and 

 convex on the back, and otherwise wholly unappendaged, except that 

 a few have plane-winged margins. 



