OBSERVATIONS ON THE COMPOSITZ. 9 
so has S. bicolor, which he did not remove from Solidago. 
And yet, the white rays were what he seemed to emphasize 
as the generic character. But he also mentions the shrubby 
habit and subcorymbose inflorescence as distinguishing 
marks; and. in these respects, as I have said, Gundlachia is 
quite like one of the species that he left in Solidago; so very 
like it that, without a lens, he could not, in the herbarium, 
distinguish it from that species of ‘‘ Solidago.” But it is 
here worth recording that very early in his botanical career 
he did perceive and admit that the West Indian plant is con- 
generic with CarysomMa. Ona sheet of specimens which, in 
1840, he saw in the herbarium of Sir William Hooker—the 
sheet that is typical for my var. obtusifolia—he wrote: 
“This belongs to the section Chrysoma and is very nearly 
allied to S. pauciflosculosa, Michx. Is it not the S. Doming- 
ensis, Spreng.?—A.G.” Doubtless in that early day when 
he had a reputation to make, he had examined his plant, and 
had perceived that it was not actually S. pauezflosculosa. 
But more than forty years afterwards, and one year subse- 
quently to the proposing of Gundlachia, he wrote upon the 
same herbarium sheet, under his former note: “It is S. 
(Chrysoma, Nutt.) pauciflosculosa, Michx.—A. Gray, 1881,” 
thus reversing his earlier and right judgment upon these 
specimens. I can only suppose that in 1881 he looked at 
them but casually, and without a lens, and that so he was 
deceived by the mere general aspect and the outline of the 
leaves, which outline in these Bahama specimens is precisely 
that of C. pauciflosculosa, though they bear not the faintest 
suggestion of that remarkable reticulation which marks so 
distinctly every part of the leaf in this species of the 
United States mainland. 
The shrubs thus brought into juxtaposition under the 
name Chrysoma have their nearest relatives on the Pacific 
side of the continent, and these are partly maritime and 
partly montane in their distribution. Only one of them has 
been named asa Solidago by any author. Two others are 
