PENNELL: STUDIES IN THE AGALINANAE 123 
sufficient points of contrast. The material before me is all 
Bolivian,* but may be safely assigned to this genus. . 
In Virgularia the plant is shrubby, and for our purpose is 
best distinguished by its tubular, fleshy corolla, mostly red (or 
some allied shade), after flowering somewhat persistent, shriveling 
and only tardily falling. These characters appear again, at least 
in greater part, in the Brazilian Esterhazya Mikan, and in our 
North American Macranthera Torr. (to be mentioned later), and 
seem to indicate a sharp distinction between these three genera 
and the remainder. Virgularia is to be held as a natural, well- 
marked genus of western South America. 
The remainder of this paper will deal strictly with the species 
of the United States, no other generic name having been proposed 
from Tropical or South America which can affect the nomen- 
clature of our species. Yet it must be remembered that a or the 
great center of this group lies in South America, and no complete _ 
understanding of the inter-relationship of the whole can be gained 
till the species there are studied. Such study is deferred. 
The next name that could concern us is in a work descriptive 
of fruits, Chytra Gaertn. fil., 1805. As only the fruit is shown, 
and that does not seem conclusive—and as no native country 
whatever is given—this plant may be left permanently as un- 
identifiable. Such a solution is suggested by Gaertner’s specific 
name anomala. Yet it must be recognized that his figure shows 
a decided resemblance to a ‘‘Gerardia” capsule. ; 
In 1819 Rafinesque descrided a yellow-flowered, coarse, 
lanceolate-leaved plant from Western Kentucky, under a new 
genus, Dasistoma. His description is clear and good, and 
leaves no doubt that his plant was the one described one year 
previously (1818) as Seymeria macrophylla Nutt. Rafinesque 
speaks of a short corolla-tube, rotate, 5-lobed limb, 4 nearly equa 
stamens, short filaments, glabrous anthers, short, cylindrical 
style, thick, obtuse stigma,—excellent diagnostic characters for 
macrophylla, but all impossible for Dasistoma (spelled Dasystoma) 
as taken up in 1846 by Bentham, and followed in later works. 
Dasistoma was based upon D. aurea Raf. (1819), antedated by 
Seymeria macrophylla Nutt. (1818), so the combination becomes 
* Bang 188, 730, 2530, 2854; Buchtien 129, 789; Rusby 1077, 1078, 1 080, 1081. 
