58 PITTONIA. 
thera in generic rank. In 1841 he retained it;! also in 1852 
and 1853;? in 1858;? in 1863;* even in 1865 he published E 
a new species as Machsranthera, and up to 1874 this view is 
still maintained. Not until 1876, and after thirty-five 
years’ maintenance of the other view, did he yield, hesitat- 
ingly, in the Botany of California to the proposition that — 
these plants might, as a matter of present expediency, be - 
received as species of Aster. His apology is this: “For this 
flora, at least, it is best to receive it | Aster] iu the extended 
form which it reassumes in Bentham and Hooker’s Genera 
Plantarum.” 7 
While MACHÆRANTHERA as a genus does not in any way 
intergrade with AsrER,it does present everywhere marks of — | 
a much closer affinity for two other allied genera, namely, . 
Corethrogyne and Lessingia. Nothing of any more impor- - 
tance than the turbinate and densely villous achenes of the — 
former stands in the way of its being merged in MACH — 
RANTHERA ; and Gray, in the Synoptical Flora, admitted to — 
the group, and in ihe face of the fruit character assigned to — 
it, two species having achenes and pappus entirely diverse - 
from those of true MACHJERANTHERA. ‘Those two were re — 
ferred by me to the genus Eriocarpum.? ; 
The ray-flowers are always purplish or red, as faras known; - 
but in one species there are no ligules. The disk-corollas | 
are yellow, changing to red or brown. The typical species - 
are strictly annual, and belong to Mexico and the south- 
eastern borders of the United States. The largest propor- . 
tion of the species are of the Rocky Mountain region and - 
the remoter West. Several of these are biennial, some ap- — 
! In Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 99, under uis name Dieteria. 
? In Plante Wrightiane, i and ii À 
3 In Botany Mex. Bo 
* [n Enum. Pl. Parry, Hall iid Harbour. 
5 Proc. Am. Acad. vi. 539. 
5 Porter & Coulis Fl. Colorado. 
1 Bot. Calif. i. 321. : 
*See EnvTHEA, ii. 109, 110; E. gymnocephalum and E. Coloradense. 
