58 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [JAN. 9 
‘are the oldest available for the various forms, and have suc- 
ceeded in seeing most of the type specimens which would in- 
fluence the result. I have adopted the earliest available name 
in all cases, discarding such as have originally been applied to 
different species than those with which they have been asso- 
ciated by some authors, on the principle that a name once pub- 
lished for an organism belongs to it and to no other. 
Michaux, who founded the genus* recognized four species, 
all North American, viz: 1, L. sessiliflora, based on Medicago 
Virginica, L.; 2, L. procumbens; 3, L. capitata, and 4, L. poly- 
stachya, based on Hedysarum hirtum, L. 
Persoon, four years later, + accepted all of these except JL. 
sessiliflora, which he redescribed as L. reticulata, basing it on 
Hedysarum reticulatum, Willd., admitted Hedysarum violaceum, Li. 
into the genus as L. violacea, and added tive Asiatic species, 
together with one of whose habitat he was uninformed Pursh, 
in 1814, maintained eight species, all of which are accepted 
in the following pages, although mainly under older names, 
Nuttall, in 1818, admitted eight, suppressing one of Pursh’s 
and adding Z. Stuvei. Torrey and Gray in, 1840, reduced the 
number to six, recognizing, however, a Jarge number of varie- 
ties. The genus was monographed by Maximowicz { in 1873, 
who described 33 species, six of them North American, follow- 
ing very closely the treatment of Torrey and Gray. Dr. Wat- 
son’s Bibliographical Index of 1878 admits nine species, includ- 
ing the introduced JL. striata, and in the sixth edition of Gray’s 
Manual he recognizes the same number. I am confident that 
the difficulties found in naming these plants from descriptions 
are on account of too few species being admitted. It seems to 
me that there are twelve distinct species in eastern North 
America with a possibility of one or two more claiming recogni- 
tion when more specimens of them are obtained. 
As to the characters which I have mainly relied upon to de- 
termine species, I have not been able to detect a better 
wherewith to effect a primary division of our native ones than 
the short calyx lobes—shorter than the pod—taken with the 
presence of cleistogamous flowers and nearly always purple or 
pink corollas for one group, and the long calyx-lobes taken with 
white or ochroleucous corollas (sometime tinged with purple) 
and absence of cleistogamous flowers for the other. The pe- 
duncled or sessile clusters of flowers, shape of the leaves, erect. 
* Flor. Bor. Am. ii. 70. 
+t Syn. ii. 318. 
+ Act. Hort. Petrop. ii 327-388. 
