STUDIES IN THE COMPOSITA. 281 
ever, as having anticipated that anything decisive about the 
identity of that plant would be likely to be obtained from 
such a source. During the whole course of my own studies 
I could not think of it as worth while to ask my obliging 
friends of the Linnsan Society, and of the British Museum, 
to make search and report to me what specimens might be 
extant there to throw light on the text of Linnzus and his 
contemporaries. It seemed to me that no specimens but those 
of Plukenet and of Clayton or Gronovius could be of impor- 
tance, and even these, of no great moment; for Plukenet's fig- 
ure is in itself sufficiently indicative of my A. decipiens. I 
have never doubted that, since I learned to distinguish A. 
arnoglossa, decipiens and fallax. But Gronovius seemed to have 
included under his plantain-leaved species, what I at length 
named A. arnoglossa; for he has not only Plukenet's White 
Plantain, but also another which he confuses with it, the 
foliage of which is said to be *hoary-tomentose beneath." 
This I have naturally assumed to be my A. arnoglossa; and 
Ishould at any time have been curious to see the Clay- 
tonian n. 287. It is therefore very interesting to be told, as 
we are by Prof. Robinson, that the specimen in the British 
Museum representing Clayton’s plant is A. solitaria. There 
is reason to wish that other specimens of this Claytonian 
number may be extant; for I can hardly believe the plant 
actually seen and described by Gronovius to have pre- 
sented a solitary head. This man was too ardent a dis- 
ciple of Linneeus, and too complete a master of the Linnean 
system of terminology to have allowed himself to describe 
by the phrase “caule capitato" a plant of the composite 
which exhibited at the top of its stem only one head. All 
such composites were everywhere described by Linnzus 
and his followers, and that until the earlier part of the 
nineteenth century, as “ caule unifloro.” In trying to identify 
