GAYLUSSACIA URSINA. 51 



fruiting specimens of one or more species with " baccis 8-10- 

 locularibus ! loculis monospermis ? " But, instead of following this 

 clew to the solution of this curious anomaly, he merely introduced 

 a nominal species, V. decamerocarpon* somewhat suspecting, in- 

 deed, that it might be a variety of V. frondosum, but unconscious 

 that his four succeeding species shared in the peculiarity. ' 



The next notice, expressly stating that this character is common 

 to all the resinous-dotted species, and that the fruit is drupaceous 

 instead of baccate, was published by myself in January, 1842, and 

 the name of Decachana was proposed for the group or genus.t 

 In 1843, Mr. Nuttall established the same genus on the same spe- 

 cies, under the somewhat similar name of Decamerium. % About 

 the same time, on revising the Vacciniea; for the Flora of North 

 America, I was convinced that these plants are not generically dis- 

 tinguishable from Gaylussacia, and therefore referred them to that 

 genus, from which they appear to differ in nothing but their decid- 

 uous foliage, —a character that will surely be deemed unimportant, 

 while both deciduous and evergreen species are embraced in Vacci- 

 nium. In inflorescence, and in other respects, they quite accord 

 with genuine species of Gaylussacia, and also in the resinous atoms 

 with which they are more or less copiously sprinkled, but which are 

 not found in any true Vaccinium, § 



* "An genus distinclum ? An Gaylussacia sp. foliis caducis ? An var. decem- 

 locularis V. frondosi ? " Dunal, in DC. Prodr., Vol. VII., p. 566. 



t Botanical Excursion to Mount. N. Car., in Sill. Journ., Vol. XLIL, p. 43 ; 

 reprinted in Hooker's Land. Journ. Bot., Vol. III., p. 234 (in a note). The seeds 

 were erroneously said to be ascending, instead of suspended. 



X Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Part 3d of Vol. VIII., 

 New Series (1843), p. 259. 



§ Although Mr. Nuttall (in Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc, I. c.) remarks, that the habit 

 of his Decamerium, as well as the geographical range, " is wholly different from 



