92 ERYTHEA. 
I have long thought that the establishment of the genus 
CHRYSOTHAMNUS was one of Nuttall’s happiest propositions. 
He saw that these tufted shrubs of western alkaline plains 
were generically distinct from DeCandolle’s Bigelovia. And 
Gray, his young colleague in the study of these plants, was 
of the same opinion. It was unfortunate that Gray, instead 
of following Nuttall as to the new genus, should have chosen 
to follow one far less deserving to be taken as an authority. 
Schelchtendal had, in 1839 or 1840, referred a Mexican species 
of what was of Nuttall’s genus Isocoma to that Old World 
subgenus of Aster called Linosyris; and Gray, in the 
Torrey & Gray Flora proceeded, in the face of Nuttall’s 
greatly superior knowledge of botany in general, and of 
these plants in particular, to dispose all the Chrysothamni 
under the Old World herbaceous genus Linosyris. This 
course, entered upon in much ignorance as to the real 
characteristics both of the foreign Linosyris, and of the 
to him almost equally foreign shrubs of western plains and 
mountains, he held to for more than thirty years. But in 
1873, Bentham, when he came to take up the final examin- 
ation of all known Asteroidew, soon demonstrated the 
absence of near affinity between Linosyris proper and these 
shrubs of the Far West, and perceived the necessity of rein- 
stating Nuttall’s Curysorsamnus. This was done in the 
Genera Plantarum; and I think we should have had little 
further trouble with the nomenclature of these plants had 
not Bentham merged in his Chrysothamnus the herbaceous 
genus Bigelovia, i. e., Chondrophora. At this juncture Gray 
asserted the priority of Bigelovia over Chrysothamnus, and 
so all the species became renamed under Bigelovia; Ben- 
tham himself accepting, in the Addenda et Corrigenda of 
his volume, the name Bigelovia instead of Chrysothamnus. 
I have already expressed the opinion that Chondrophora 
and Chrysothamnus are not properly congeneric; that the 
plant which comes nearest to forming a connecting link 
between these two is Petradoria, a species which no one has 
yet referred to either genus. As compared with Chondro- 
