342 The Botanical Gazette. [August, 
Specific lines had been drawn chiefly on relative length of 
bracts, relative length of stamens to the pistil, and on slight 
differences in the shape of the filaments. The first two prove 
to be dependent upon age of specimen, while the last point 
seems in most cases to be wholly without foundation. 
GUILLEMINIA HBK. Nov. Gen. et Sp. 6: 40. pl. 578. 
1823, non Neck. Elem. 2: 132. 1790. 
Habit very similar to Gossypianthus with opposite cauline 
leaves connate at base, the radical ones few, long spatulate, 
not persistent, dense leafy axillary flower clusters, minute 
scarious woolly flowers, three oblong delicate bracts, campan- 
ulate 5-lobed calyx with obconic tube, five stamens inserted 
at the mouth of the tube opposite the calyx lobes, short style 
with emarginately 2-lobed stigma and translucent seed. 
The presence of radical leaves in mature specimens is very 
rare, having been observed only once among fifty specimens. 
They differ from those of Gossypianthus in their delicate text- 
ure, and so withering and disappearing before the flowering 
period. : 
Necker’s Guilleminia is a synonym of Votomita Aubl. 
(1775), an ill-defined genus of the Cornacee@. The present 
acceptance of the law of synonyms would suggest that the 
name might be justifiably abandoned; and this course would 
now be taken if the retroactive force of this law were not 
still an open question. But in view of its continued agita- 
tion and the probable final rejection of the ‘‘retroactive 
principle, we have adopted the more conservative plan of re- 
taining the present name. 
I. G. DENSA (Willd. ) Mog. DC. Prodr. 132: 338. 1849. 
Lilecebrum densum Willd. Roem et Schult. Syst. 5: 517. 1819. 
G. illecebroides HBK. |. c. 1822. 
G. densa alsinefolia Mo. I. c. 1849. 
Achyranthes piloselloides Poit. ex Mog. l. c. 
Leaves spatulate to ovate or lanceolate, minute, punctate, 
mostly bright green and glabrous above, pilose-pubescent be- 
low: bracts sub-equal: calyx lobes oblong, obtuse, I-nerv ed. 
—Western Texas, Southern Arizona and New Mexico, ex- 
tending southward into tropical America. It has been found 
as far south as Bolivia, Type unknown. 
