12 
ON SOME SPECIES OF CRACCA. 
By James Brirren, F.L.S., anp Epmunp G. Baker, F.L.S. 
: I. Cracoa viremina L. 
An incidental reference to the National Herbarium in connection 
with the plant known to modern American authors until lately as 
Tephrosia virginiana Pers., and to the more modern school as 
Cracea virginiana L., showed that by this name were represented 
in literature and in herbaria two plants so unlike in appearance 
and in character that it is at first impossible to imagine that they 
seuke have been confused. his, however, is the case, and the 
explanation is rendered more difficult by the fact that the confusion 
was caused by Linneeus himself, the founder of the species. The 
name, however, is, and for a hundred and fifty years has been, 
misapplied; and this it is our object to show. 
The oe is the description of Cracca virginiana as it stands 
in Sp. Pl. lh (1753): the citations are numbered for convenience 
of reference : 
1 Seis virginiana) leguminibus retrofaleatis compressis vil- 
of 
$ spicatis, i lanatis, foliolis ovali-oblongis acuml-— 
Gen. 
[2 Clitoria ee baat caule decumbente. Hort. cliff. 498.* 
Led 
g. 83. 
[3] Hina Mich. gen. 210. 
[4] Orobus sip sa ange foliis fulva lanugine incanis, foliorum 
rv ab Pluk. mant. 142. 
[5] Cicer Su alae: virginianus hirsutie pubescens, floribus 
amplis subrubentibus. Pluk. alm. 103. t. 23. f. 2. 
Habitat in Visine, Canada 
Caulis in loco natali erectus est.” 
a 
(1] The description with the nara ty hf teamietee No. 5) 
appears in Nov. Plant. Genera, pp. 31, 82, n. 1040 (1751), as the 
first species in the genus Cracca, big without trivial name. It 
is reprinted, with the addition of the specific name, in Amen. 
Acad. iii. 18, 19 (1756). n both places, as in the above A selectins 
** Elymus Mitch.* gen. 21 a is incorrectly quoted a nonym— 
apparently through some accidental confusion with FE vias Mitch. 
(on the same page), which, however, is also cited by Linneus in all 
three places after the generic name Cracca. The mis i 
rected in Sp. Pl. ed. 2, 1063, where Erebinthus is correct 
there is also in the Banksian herbarium &@ specimen from Jritonell 
labelled ‘‘ Erebinthus Mitchell 
] The citation of the descriptive phrase from Hort. Cliff. and 
Gronovius, standing, as it does, first among the s synonyms, is in 
itself sufficient to determine what plant Linneas had in mind. In 
* The misprint “ Mich.” is confined to Sp. Pl. ed.1. Elymus Mitch. is 
correctly cited in Bp. Peete WM abs cneighs ct Hine 
7 
4 
: 
