34 



, NEW SPECIES OF SOUTH AMERICAN PLANTS* 



Bv Francis W. Pennell 



Since 1893, Professor Henry H. Rusby has been publishing 

 descriptions of new species of South American plants. It has 

 been Dr. Rusby's good fortune to collect in Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, 

 Venezuela and Colombia, and to have had the privilege of study- 

 ing the collections of ]Mandon, Bang, Williams and Buchtien, 

 from Bolivia and of Herbert H. Smith from Colombia. 



Before setting out with the reviewer upon their joint expedi- 

 tion in 1917 to central Colombia, it had been Dr. Rusby's wish to 

 complete the study of the older collections which had been ac- 

 cumulating under his care. The present paper is the deferred 

 accomplishment of this and lays before us 292 new species, 172 

 from Colombia, 85 from Bolivia, 29 from Venezuela, 3 each from 

 Peru and Brazil. The Colombian species are nearly all from 

 the Smith collection made in the Department of Magdalena, only 

 one, and that entered with doubt, being from our own trip. The 

 Bolivian species are mostly of Buchtren's, Bang's and Williams' 

 collecting, the describer's own plants having been long ago studied. 

 But the Venezuela species are from the expedition of Rusby and 

 Squires in 1896. one which has heretofore been too little cited. 



The descriptions appear ample, and specimens are uniformly 

 cited, rarely more than one to a species, thus rendering of small 

 importance the rarity of the use of the word " type." In five in- 

 stances however species are named /or collectors other than those 

 whose specimens have been fully listed and apparently used for 

 description, 90 that the reader is left in doubt as to which plant 

 should be counted type. The study is attractively presented, on 

 good paper and in clear type, and such a venture, at the author's 

 own expense, deserves more than a passing regard. 



At its close the paper contains an index to the genera under 

 which South American species are described in this and all the 



* H. H. Rusby, Descriptions of Three Hundred New Species of South 

 American Plants, pp. 1-170, Dec. 20, 1920. Published by the author, 115 W. 

 68th St., New York City. $2.50. 



