On Pisonia obtusata and its allies 
N. L. BRITTON 
Pisonia obtusata was described by Jacquin in Hort. Schoenbr. 
3: 36 (1798), and figured at p/. 374 of that work; a detailed de- 
Scription is given of the plant which came from the island of New 
Providence, Bahamas, ‘in insula providentiae.”’ light years later, 
in 1806, Swartz in Fl. Ind. Oce. 3: 1960, described another /i- 
sonia obtusata, which came from the island of Saint Bartholomew, 
one of the Windward Islands, south of St. Thomas. Grisebach 
in Fl, Br. W. L., 71, credits the species to Swartz and not to Jac- 
quin, making no mention of the type locality in the Bahamas, and 
this blunder is continued by Heimerl in Engler’s Bot. Jahrb, 21: 
625, in his monograph of West Indian Nyctaginaceae, although 
he cites Jacquin’s original description and figure, placing it, how- 
€ver, after his citation of Swartz. This all goes to show that 
attention to type localities is desirable. 
In looking over the collections of Bahamian plants made by 
Professor Coker, during the exploration conducted by the Geo- 
graphical Society of Baltimore in the summer of 1903, and those 
made by me in the summer of 1904, I have had occasion to iden- 
tify the Pisonia obtusata of Jacquin, which is well illustrated by 
Several specimens.. 
Contingent upon his error in the proper identification of the 
Species, Heimer] has described (oc. cit.) the Bahama plant as /%sonza 
calophylla, which thus becomes a synonym of P. obtusata Jacq. 
A further part of the history of the misidentification of this 
Species is to be found in the reference of the plant of southern 
Florida to Pisonia obtusata Sw., by Chapman, South. Fl. 374; 
by Sargent, Silva, 6: 111. p/. 297, and by pan, Fe ee U.S. 
411; this has nothing to do with either the Prsonia obtusata of 
Jacquin or with that of Swartz; Heimerl has included it in his 
_ Pisonia discolor longifolia (loc. cit. 627), making, I believe, a further 
_€tror in supposing it to be only a form of P. discolor Spreng., the 
_ type locality of which is Jamaica. 
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