OF PLANTS CALLED COMPOSITE. 287 



would not be difficult to point out a much greater number 

 consisting of species improperly united. One very remark- 

 able case of this kind is the genus 



Calea, 



to which, as I intend to enter fully into the history and 

 affinities of its species, I shall confine myself. 



This genus was established by Linnaeus in the sixth 

 edition of his Genera Plantarum, where the natural cha- 

 racter is given : but the following essential character, 

 which is still retained, appears for the first time in the 

 twelfth edition of Sy sterna Naturae, in the third section of 

 Polygamia aequalis : 



" Beceptaculum paleaceum, Pappus pilosus, Calyx im- 

 bricatus." 



The species originally referred to Calea, in the second 

 edition of Species Plantarum, are C. jamaicensis, opposi- 

 tifolia, and Amellus, described from specimens in Browne's 

 Jamaica Herbarium, which he had received a few years 

 before, and incorporated with his own. 



These three plants Linnaeus had originally referred to 

 Santolina} for which it seems to me rather less difficult to 

 account than for his afterwards uniting them together to 

 form his genus Calea; two of them, according to his 

 descriptions, 2 though in reality one only, being without 

 pappus, and in other respects corresponding with the generic 

 character of Santolina; and the third, which Browne had [ios 

 doubtfully referred to the same genus, though furnished 

 with pappus, agreeing with the others in having opposite 

 leaves. 



But the difference in habit between all these plants and 

 the original species of Santolina is so great, that it pro- 

 bably afterwards determined Linnaeus to remove them from 

 that genus ; and although he found a sufficient generic 

 character in the pappus of Calea jamaicensis only, he united 

 with it the two other species, for a reason perhaps similar 



1 In Amoenit. Acad. vol. v, p. 404. - Lor. cit. 



