74 The Vegetation of the 



ethrogyne D. C. now with 3 species, Hulsea T. & Gi. with 6, Actinolepis 

 D. C. after Bentham with 8 species; Oxyura D. C. recently united with 

 Layia, Tuckermania Nutt with Leptosyne, Coinogyne Less, with Jaumea 

 Pers. 



Of what value endemism is to the believed originality of floral areas 

 and how little contented we ought to be with exclusively recent agencies 

 of distribution shows Phryma leptostachya a monotype genus and after 

 Schauer even a monotype order. It is inimaginable that this plant now 

 found only in North America and in the Himalayas, by means of recent 

 agencies could have migrated from one to the other of its actual habitats. 

 Its disjoint existence is explicable only from geological and climatical 

 changes and progressive extinction of the plant in the intermediate coun- 

 tries; for a double origin cannot be imagined. It is true paleontologists 

 made not known this or another related species from former geological 

 periods, but it is a fact, that other monotypes f. i. Liriodendron now only 

 found in North America existed in the tertiary period in very distant 

 countries, in Greenland as well as in Germany and Italy. Should that not 

 lead to the conclusion that, what are now monotypes, be the last members 

 of once widely distributed genera now in process of extinction ? Analogous 

 examples are offered in zoology; only compare the small unmber of recent 

 Ganoids with the richness of former geological periods. 



Lately not less than 10 California monotypes were proposed, the greater 

 part probably waiting for the company of new foundlings. 



Systematization so much subject to change united recently Solea to 

 lonidium, Zizia to Pimpinella and Gymnostichum with Asprella, so that 

 our flora would now contain only 21 monotypes, viz: Hydrastes, Sangui- 

 naria, Anychia, Napaea, Floerkea, Apios, Gymnocladus, Echinocystis, 

 Dodecatheon, Phryma, Jsanthus, Menyanthes, Montelia, Sassafras, Dirca, 

 Peltandra, Aplectrum, Schollera, Dulichium, Brachyelytrum andDiarrhena. 

 Caulophyllum and leffersonia are excluded; since in addition to each a 

 second species is known from Eastern Asia (Amur). Besides Phryma only 

 Menyanthes occurs outside of the American continent: it is widely dis- 

 tributed over EuEope and Asia. That was no monotype to Linnaeus, when 

 he proposed the genus, but afterwards there were three genera formed oi 

 it, Limnanthemum and Villarsia; so Menyanthes trifoliata became a mono- 

 type. A small area cover Hydrastes, Napaea and Diarrhena; westward 

 reach the Pacific coast only Floerkea, Dodecatheon and Dirca, the Gulf 

 coast Sanguinaria, Anychium, Apios, Phryma, Sassafras, Dirca, Peltandra, 

 Dulichium and Brachyelytrum. Over the Alleghanies do not pass Napaea 

 and Diarrhena. Westward occur Schollera in Nevada, Montelia in Texas, 

 and in the western plains Apios, Gymnocladus, Echinocystis, Peltandra ( ?) 

 Aplectrum and Dulichium. 



Of the 384 genera of our local flora 22 are restricted to the east of 

 North America. These are, besides the above mentioned monotypes: 

 Elodes, Boltonia, Blephilia, Ouosmodium, Carya, Oryzopsis, Eatonia and 



