222 DESCRIPTION: OF ASTER; DIVARICATI 
Part II, 1743, which contained respectively 12 and 2 species de- 
scribed as Aster. After that publication the elder Gronovius is 
said by his son Theodor (Fl. Virg., ed. 2, preface) to have awaited 
arrival of *another not less abundant instalment . . . from 
Virginia" for “almost 16 years," when “at last there came a 
small bundle." Probably the type specimen A. Claytont was in 
this bundle. It is fortunate that it was not in that large collection 
sent by Clayton soon after, which “ perished,’ says Theodor 
Gronovius, “at the hand of truculent pirates, who would not 
spare even our studies." Apparently the 16 years before the 
arrival of the ** small bundle," were counted by the son from his 
father's first publishing, in 1739, making the date of arrival 1755. 
Within the next two years, or during 1757, the elder Gronovius 
seems to have finished working up the species in this bundle, for 
the son, writing 1 Jan. 1762, says in his preface to the 2d edn. of 
Flora Virginica, that “now four years have passed” since his 
father prepared this ** Part 3d." | 
Clayton, the correspondent not only of Gronovius but of l-in- 
naeus and Collinson, and rightly styled by the latter “ the greatest 
botanist of America," was John Clayton, Jr.; born at Fulham, 
London, 1686, who came with his father 1705 to Virginia, where 
the father became attorney-general and the son was for 51 years 
clerk of Gloucester Co., dying 1773, aged about 87, just in time 
to be spared the grief of seeing his botanical MSS. and his her- 
barium destroyed in the burning of the New Kent County court- 
house in the Revolution. 
Clayton had sent to Gronovius a map of Virginia to show his 
botanical journeys ; probably in 1755, as it was published in the 
1762 edition. Clayton stated in label-description, that he obtained 
this particular plant no. 767, among the mountains ; which might 
have been, judging from his journey on the map, in the Blue 
Ridge region, among the tributaries of the James or the Rappa- 
hannock, both of which he followed into the mountains. 
1762. Original description, Gron. Fl. Virg. ed. 2, 125. 1762. 
ASTER foliis cordatis acutis serratis petiolatis, summis ovatis amplexicaulibus : 
caule subfruticoso, [Written by Jan Frederik Gronovius, apparently 1 
6-7 
Aster serotinus, floribus [7. e., of a single branch] in umbellula tenui laxa flavis 
sh in 1 taft à P ik H 
£. e.. vellowi 1:semi 
»7 5 rl 2 r 4 
flosculis in radio niveis acuminatis [probably young and acuminate because not yet fully 
TE AEST ey gan PES oe oe ee = hv a E 
