310 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [APRIL 
specimen of B. floribunda H. B. K. (in Herb. Mus. Hist. Nat. 
Paris). An important feature of B. floribunda is.its simple leaves, 
although KuntTH, in the original description, betrayed doubt as to 
whether tripartite leaves are completely lacking (foliis . . . sim- 
plicibus, nisi folia inferiora, a me haud visa, in hac quoque specie 
ternata sint’’). WricHt, in describing B. simplicifolia (“a speci- 
ebus reliquis Austro-Americanis foliis indivisis ovatis acuminatis 
differt’’), was clearly unaware that this same species had already 
long before been described from the same country (Ecuador) as 
B. floribunda. An excellent cotype of B. simplicifolia in the 
Herbarium of Field Museum has foliage much superior to that 
of the type. It possesses four pairs of large simple leaves, the 
lowermost ones 15.2 cm. long and 5.6 cm. wide. From these it 
would appear even more plausible that the species is constantly 
simple leaved. 
BIDENS ALAUSENSIS H. B. K., Nov. Gen. 4:184. 1820; Bidens 
valparadisiaca Colla, Mem. Accad. Torin. 38:12. pl. 24. 1835; 
Bidens chilensis DC., Prodr. 5:603. 1836.—A study of several 
authentic specimens of B. chilensis DC. collected around Quillota, 
Chile, by BERTERO about 1829, shows that these are precisely the 
same as the type specimen (fig. 1) and BoNPLAND’s private dupli- 
cate specimen of B. alausensis H. B. K. (both specimens in Herb. 
Mus. Hist. Nat. Paris). Other specimens, collected at. various 
dates by Gay, W. H. Harvey, Brinces, etc., and all determined 
as B. chilensis, show that the rays are frequently white, as stated 
by Bertero (DC., /.c.), instead of yellow, as in DECANDOLLE’S 
type specimen. : 
Regarding B. valparadisiaca Colla we need only to say that it 
was founded upon BERTERO’s material, as was DECANDOLLES B. 
4 The only difference that I can detect is that, in at least its cotype material ex- 
amined, B. simplicifolia has the exterior involucral bracts mainly subspatulate and 
only slightly ciliate; in the type of B. floribunda, these are more oblong and more 
ciliate. While such a variation in shape or size of these bracts has already, in some 
species, been made the basis for a varietal distinction (e.g., B. rosea aequisquama 
Fernald, Proc. Amer. Acad. 43:68. 1907), such a course would seem undesirable here. 
Aside from the fact that these bract characters frequently vary, in other better known 
species of Bidens, from oblong to spatulate on the same head, it would mean the un- 
welcome use, according to rules, of the name simplicifolia for a variety of a species 
that itself is simple leaved (simplicifolia). 
