STUDIES IN THE COMPOSITAE. 179 
this form are perfectly entire, and thus fully answer to that 
part of the Linnean description and Dillenian figure. I 
am quite convinced that, in those forms of Gray’s E. hys- 
sopifolium laciniatum that have their lower leaves merely 
serrate-toothed, not laciniate, we have the type of E. hys- 
sopifolium Linn. The rather lax and open inflorescence, 
and also the scarcity of fascicled axillary small leaves, 
amounts to another point of agreement with the type figure; 
and it is also to be distinguished from the plants of linear 
l-nerved leaves by the lighter green of the herbage. This 
last-named character was even brought out by one of the 
contemporaries of Linneus. The plant had been cultivated 
in Europe for fifty years, at the time when Linnzeus named 
it, and Philip Miller in 1759 describes its leaves as “ of a 
light green colour.” ! 
Now against this proposition of mine, that true E. hys- 
sopifolium is practically Gray's var. laciniatum, there is an 
early statement of Gray himself to be considered. As long 
ago as 1841 he said that “the Linnzan species was founded 
on the narrow-leaved plant (E. linearifolium, DC.) in which 
thelowerleavesarealways3-nerved and often toothed."* The 
natural and easy refutation of all this is, that even the upper- 
most and rameal leaves in the Dillenian figure, and in the 
plant which I here identify with it, i. e., the laciniatum variety, 
are distinctly 3-nerved, as they never are in D. linearifolium. 
t is no question of the nervation of the proper stem-leaves, 
but of even the uppermost; and only that part of the Lin- 
nean hyssopifolium which Plukenet's figure represents 18 
equivalent to linearifelium. But that can not stand for 
typical hyssopifolium for the reason that Linneus gives 
precedence to the Dillenian plate as the true type. And 
the worthiest of Linnzus’ contemporaries, as to his knowl- 
edge of American composite, Miller, confirms this. He, a 
more accurate man than Linnzus, and of a more thorough 
Tot eiee ACAD PM E 
! Gardener's Dictionary, ed. 7. 
2 Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 84. 
