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CONFERENCE NOTES FOR NOVEMBER 
A conference of the scientific staff and registered students of 
the Garden was held on the afternoon of November 5. 
Dr. P. A. Rydberg presented the results of recent studies of the 
genus Harpalyce, as follows: 
“The genus Harpalyce was described by De Candolle from an 
unpublished illustration of Mocino and Sesse’s Astragalus 
carnosus. Sesse and Mocino’s manuscript Flora Novae His- 
paniae was later published in Mexico some years ago and in it is 
found an Astragalus formosus. As De Candolle named the type 
species Harpalyce formosa, it is to be assumed that ‘carnosus’ 
was a misprint for formosus. This species has remained un- 
known except through these meager original descriptions, trac” 
ings of Mocino and Sesse’s drawings, and a reproduction of one 
of these published by Bentham in Hooker’s Journal of Botany. 
Several species which evidently belong to the same genus have 
been collected in Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba, and Brazil, but none 
of these can be identified with Harpalyce formosa. The genus 
can be divided into four groups: 
‘‘y, One species from Mexico: H. mexicana, which has broad, 
thick, and woody pods and grayish pubescence, while all the 
other species have leathery pods and more or less ferruginous 
pubescence. The flowers of this species are unknown. 
‘2. Six species from Mexico: H. formosa, H. Goldmanii, H. 
Loesneriana, H. hidalgensis, H. arborescens, and H. Pringlet; 
and one from Guatemala: H. rupicola, in which the petals are 
subequal, the keel-petals strongly incurved and free at the tip, 
and the pods are broad, rather few-seeded, and sometimes only 
with traces of partitions between the seeds. 
‘'3. Three Brazilian species: H. brasiliana, H. Hilairiana, and 
HH. minor, with flowers similar to those of the second group, but 
the keel less curved and the pods so far as known with many 
seeds separated by false partitions. 
“4. Three Cuban species: H. cubensis and two closely re- 
lated undescribed species, in which the petals are more fleshy 
and very unequal, the keel-petals being two to three times as 
