120 PENNELL: STUDIES IN THE AGALINANAE 
first as aid to M. Surian, charged with a commission from the 
King of France to the Isles Antilles, “‘to make search of all that 
Nature there produces most rare and most curious.” During 
the nearly ten years spent in the West Indies, he described, he 
says, nearly six hundred different plants. 
Gerardia is both described and figured. The description 
reads:—‘‘Gerardia est plantae genus flore A monopetalo, perso- 
nato, cujus labium superius surrectum est, subrotundum & 
-emarginatum, inferius vero in tres partes divisum, media bifida. 
Ex calyce autem C surgit pistillum posticae floris parti B, ad 
instar clavi infixum, quod deinde abit in fructum D oblongum, 
gibbum, septo medio E, in duo loculamenta divisum, seminibusque 
foetum orbicularibus F.’’ Then follows the note,—‘‘Gerardiae 
unicam speciem vidi. Gerardia humilis, Bugulae foliis, Asphodeli 
radice.”’ 
The genus so founded by Plumier remained unaltered, and 
very little known, till the first edition of the Species Plantarum 
in 1753. Here Linnaeus took it up, and to Plumier’s species 
which he named Gerardia tuberosa, added four others, purpurea, 
flava, pedicularia and glutinosa. It is evident, being the species 
adopted by Linnaeus from the original author of the genus, 
incidentally also being his first species listed, Gerardia tuberosa L. 
must be considered the type of the genus Gerardia (Plumier) 
Linnaeus.* 
In addition to the striking feature indicated by the specific 
name, tuberosa is characterized by Linnaeus as “‘Gerardia foltis 
subovatis tomentosis repandis, longitudine caulis,’ points quite 
at variance from those of his other species with which the name 
Gerardia has come later to be exclusively associated. Yet Lin- 
naeus’ list of species, including tuberosa, with a few additions from 
time to time, was copied successively from author to author—by 
Buc’hoz (1778), Lamarck (1786), J. F. Gmelin (1791), etc., to 
Willdenow (1800), and Persoon (1807). A few authors of this 
period realized the incongruity of such treatment, and that 
logically the name Gerardia should apply to tuberosa alone. 
* Though worked out independently by the writer, this same conclusion was 
a few months earlier by Dr. N. L. Britton. I am indebted to Dr. J. H. 
Barnhart for reviewing and confirming my determination of the type of Gerardia. 
