i8i3.3 GENUS GLYCIKE. 321 



Gal reform. This, therefore, as far as the North Ame- 

 rican species are concerned, I mean now to propose. 



The Glijcine apios is acknowledged to be tlie species 

 |rom which this genus was originally formed ; the 

 name is even derived from the sweetness of its leaves 

 and roots. Correctness, therefore, requires that this 

 species shall still be considered as the type of the ge- 

 3UIS, and that those species only shall be permitted to 

 remain which agree with it in habit and essential cha- 

 racter. 



An original error crept into the description of this 

 ^enus, by Linnaeus, which has led to m^ify subse- 

 quent mistakes ; perhaps not knowing the char^cier 

 which most strongly separated it from Phaseolus^ he 

 was fearful of confounding those two genera, if he as- 

 cribed to Glycine a spiral carina; he therefore describ- 

 ed it as deflecting the vexillum with tiie point of the 

 carina. Now the Glycine apios has really a spiral 

 «tyle and carina^ and this character having been giv- 

 en exclusively to Phaseolusj some of our species of 

 Glycine have been inaccurately transferred to that ge- 

 iius. The real difference between Fhaseolus and Ghj^ 

 cine, is discoverable in the fruit, the Fhaseolus having 

 a flat, falcate legumen, and flat reniform seeds ; and 

 the Glycine 3i cylindrical -leg.i men, with seeds cylindri- 

 cal, and truncate at each end. The Glycine thus un- 

 derstood, unites a number of plants very naturally al- 

 lied, and which exhibit no other differences than those, 

 that are strictly specific."^ 



* Still it may be remarked that the G. apios, witli pinnate leaves, flov 

 cyjs iu a thvrsHbrm panicle, 0114 a stem climbing to a considerable heigUt ; and 



