
Macbride — Reclassified or new Compositae 41 
rather than to Cephalophora.” The genus Cephalophora Cav. Icon. 
vi. 79 (1801) is now generally regarded as nothing more than a 
rayless condition of Helenitwm and although, as Gray indicated, 
A. heterophylla approaches Helenium in some respects, the general 
habit is quite different and the pappus is rather that of Gaillardia. 
Indeed Dr. Rydberg writes me that he regards this plant “as 
probably nearest Gaillardia and perhaps could be squeezed into 
it.” But in making this statement he has evidently forgotten that 
the receptacle of Actinea is smooth. It would scarcely be possible 
then to refer Actinea to Gaillardia, a genus typically characterized 
by a bristly receptacle. We have now reached the point where we 
may inquire as to what characters, if any, serve to distinguish 
Actinea (as to the original) and Tetraneuris. Careful comparison 
of mature material of Actinea heterophylla and representative 
species of Tetraneuris has resulted in merely corroborating Gray’s 
judgment that the former differs “ only in the looser, thinner, and 
smaller scales of the involucre.” This is a difference which scarcely 
appeals to one as possessing generic value especially in a case 
where the plants concerned possess no considerable diversity in 
aspect. Dr. Rydberg refers to the bracts of true Actinea as be- 
coming “‘ reflexed in age as in Helenium.” So far as the specimens 
before me show there seems to be only a tendency for the tips to _ 
Spread but however this may be the plant is still more closely 
related to Tetraneuris than to Helenium because of the quite 
similar pappus. There seems to be no justification therefore for 
considering the group of plants treated by Gray, Nelson and 
others under the name Actinella as other than congeneric with 
Actinea heterophylla Juss. In a portion of the Compositae where 
the genera are distinguished at best with difficulty nothing ap- 
Pears to be gained by regarding one element — because it happens 
to have been described first and from a region remote — aS ge 
herically separate from plants to which it bears such resemblance 
both technically and habitally as to require no “ squeezing ” on 
the part of a botanist to place it satisfactorily in the same genus. 
The name Actinea Juss. is therefore to be adopted for those plants 
recently treated in the North American Flora under the name 
Tetraneuris Greene. Gray included in Actinella, Hymenorys Cass. 
but as indicated by Hall, Univ. Cal. Publ. Bot. iii. 203 (1907), 
this is a group of plants of totally different habit and with different 

