288 



PITTONIA. 



engraviug, are in the third yolume of the Botanicul Eegister 

 (1817). Indeed, I am not aware of the existence of any other 

 presumably good figure than this, which is by that fine botani- 

 cal draftsman, Sydenham Edwards ; and, since he drew from a 

 living plant, and his figure is accompanied by a very minute 

 description drawn up by Bellenden Ker, these data, along 

 with the old garden specimens preserved in perhaps a few 

 classical herbaria, will be the only means by which indigenous 

 specimens— if ever they shall be found in any country— may 

 be identified. The native country, of course, remains unknown; 

 and some doubt has been thrown upon the Mexican habitat, 

 by a passage of Bentham (Gen. PI. ii. 250), to the effect that 

 the seeds of the original came " from southern Peru, not from 

 Mexico." The ground for this statement has not been shown; 

 but the statement seems to have led Asa Gray to infer that 

 perhaps the plant was derived from the coast of California, 

 rather than from Peru, and so this author has given the 

 species a place in the flora of North America,^ taking as his 

 Cahfornian representatives of this obscure type, certain sea- 

 board forms occurring between Humboldt Bay and the islands 

 off Santa Barbara. It is nevertheless extremely improbable 

 that any plant of California or any other part of this Conti- 

 nent, north of Mexico, can with reason be concluded to belong 

 to G. gliiUnosa. In the first place the species was everywhere 

 described as a shrubby or at least suff ratescent plant : but 

 the safiffutescent Grindelias of California in nowise respond 

 to the figures and descriptions of that species, nor were any of 

 these at any time referred to G. glutmosa either by Nuttall, who 

 alone knew them well, or by Gray, who dealt with herbarium 

 specimens. They do not answer to it in foliage, flower or 

 fruit. Secondly; the seaboard plants referred here bv Gray, 

 not only fail to show any of the essential characteristics of 

 original glutinosn in leaf, flower, or fruit, but are strictly 

 herbaceous perennials, and of lov^ stature at that. The third 

 strong presumption against the species having come from 

 California lies in the fact that the plant was bloomi.ig in the 



' Bot. Calif, i. 303; Sjn. Fl. N. km^. 



