COLOMBIAN EUPATORIUMS.  - 265 
plants to confine the presentation to a bibliographic and synonymic 
enumeration of such previously described species, together with 
diagnoses of such novelties, as may have been found in a particular 
collection. Remarks on habit, habitat, dates of flowering, collectors’ 
numbers, altitudinal ranges, etc., are usually added. Such papers are 
highly useful in large botanical establishments where numbered 
exsiccatae and copious literature are available, but apart from these 
aids they are exceedingly sterile. They fail signally to give assistance 
or encouragement to botanists resident in the tropics and to those 
collectors who are so situated as to be able to carry forward the all 
important field-work in the area treated. On this account it has 
seemed worth while to incorporate in the present paper not merely 
keys to sections and species, but at least brief descriptions of each 
species and variety enumerated. 
As to the plants included, Colombian specimens of nearly all have 
been seen by the writer. A very few, however, have been included on 
the basis of past published records of their occurrence in Colombia or 
as it was formerly called New Grenada. Happily these reports rest 
in all cases upon work of such well known writers on the Compositae 
as the eldest DeCandolle, J. G. Baker, Weddell, Hieronymus, and 
Heering. In every instance in which no material has been personally 
seen, the authority for the occurrence in Colombia is duly cited. It 
is unfortunate that many specimens of marked character and con- 
siderable scientific interest, such as those of Triana in the herbarium 
of the Royal Gardens at Kew, are quite unaccompanied by data other 
than that they came from Colombia (New Grenada). It is possible 
that such specimens of Triana, Lobb, Moritz, and others, here recorded 
as lacking data of collection, may be present under corresponding 
numbers and with more complete labels in other herbaria. In case 
any such are found, the writer would welcome further information 
regarding them. - 
As the genus Eupatorium is of large size and extends from temperate 
North America to temperate South America; as it includes species 
of much diversity of habit from delicate annuals to small trees; and 
4s It ranges from the seashore and tropical lowlands to alpine regions 
areas of considerable aridity, it may be fairly regarded as an 
average sample from which to infer the relative endemism of particular 
regions. this account it is believed that the following statistical 
|) Semorands will have a certain interest. 
. i Of the 93 species of the genus, here presented as occurring within 
: the limits of Colombia, no less than 53 or about 57 per cent are, so 
