204 PITTONIA. 
while the foremost name of every genus and species is the 
French name. CHRysaspis is even printed in the most 
modest of type, and after the name Trifolium, as if meant 
for the name of a subgenus merely. But when the author 
proceeds to name the first species Chrysaspis campestris, Desv., 
all doubt is removed asto his intention of creating a genus- 
name. As this antedates Presl's Amarenus by only three 
years, it seems most probable that Presl knew nothing of 
what Desvaux had proposed in his small local Flora ; and 
as for the Index Kewensis, we are no more called upon to 
account for this omission than for hundreds of others. 
All the species and varieties of Curysaspis are of the Old 
World as exclusively as are the species of Melilotus and Me- 
dicago ; therefore questions of the exact limits of species and 
varieties are to be settled by Old World botanists. Several 
of them have, however, long been naturalized in North 
America; though no American appears to have given them 
any study, and those we have are for the most part wrongly 
identified by the authors of our books and catalogues. 
1. C. aurea. Trifolium aureum, Pollich, Palat. ii. 344 
(1777). T. agrarium, Schreb. in Sturm, Deuschl. Fl. (1804); 
Britt. & Br. Ill. Fl. ii. 275, not Linn. Amarenus aureus, 
Fourr. Ann. Soc. Linn. Lyon. xvi, 362 (1868). This, if not 
the largest of all the members of its genus, is the largest of 
those that have become established in this country. About 
Washington it is commonly a foot high, quite erect, spar- 
ingly branched, with showy spikes, the flowers of which, in 
the dry state, are only light-brown. It is readily distin- 
guished from C. agraria by its leaflets, which are long and 
narrow, only slightly denticulate, the terminal one being 
sessile like the others. The calyx-teeth in this are not vil- 
lous, but bear at their very tips one or more long slender - 
hairs; but these are hardly to be seen except at or before 
the flowering, for they are quite deciduous, so that upon the 
older calyxes no trace of them remains. It is not improb- 
