SMITH: STUDIES IN THE GENUS LUPINUS 9 
Authors generally, following Agardh, seem to have assumed 
that any and all Chilean specimens are necessarily L. microcarpus. 
Sims. One of my early hypotheses was that the Chilean plant 
ought to be specifically distinct from all the 
North American forms referred to this species 
of Sims. As I now see it, however, neither 
of these assumptions is altogether in agree- 
ment with the facts. A new viewpoint is 
evidently necessary and the conclusions finally 
accepted by me are: (1) that the strongest 
specific character possessed by L. microcarpus 
has never been properly recognized; (2) that 
most of the North American forms regularly, 
or occasionally, referred here belong rather to 
two other species; and (3) that both of these 
“two other species’’ are likewise represented 
in Chile. This viewpoint, as I see it, permits 
a much more satisfactory classification of the 
forms under consideration. 
The original description serves little more 
than to indicate the group, of which this spe- 
cies was the first named and described. The Fic. 2. Luprnus 
illustration (from which Fic. 2 was copied) M'CROC*? US Sims. 
f Copied from _ original 
shows quite plainly, however, that the flow- plate. 
ers must have been ascending to suberect in 
anthesis, a character that, as stated above, my studies have led 
me to accept as of real diagnostic value. This character, I am 
persuaded, will be found to persist under cultivation, at least 
for a few generations. I find, moreover, amongst the very limited 
array of Chilean material available for my study, specimens which 
show this character and which certainly, it seems to me, represent 
much better the form used for the original illustration than the 
other Chilean specimens referred elsewhere by myself, or the 
North American specimens referred here by others. It is very 
probable that the species, as here limited, is a composite of more 
than one recognizable form; but I await the opportunity to study 
new and additional material before attempting to do more with 
the South American varieties. 
