326 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY, 
( that the ray pappus is never developed as in the disk flowers, but is 
/ always more or less abortive, consisting of fewer, shorter, and more 
slender bristles. Furthermore, the variation in its development seems 
absolutely independent of any other characters either floral or habital, 
so that varieties founded upon this character can have no more than 
formal value. Indeed this is the view which Dr. Gray subsequently 
took in the Synoptical Flora, i. 303. On the other hand, the form and 
length of the pappus in the disk flowers seem more worthy of note, 
and several plants have recently been received at the Gray Herbarium 
which differ so materially in this regard and in their greater hispidity 
from the typical G. parviflora, Cav., as to call attention to the group. 
In those plants from the Eastern and Middle States, as cited below, the 
pubescence of the upper internodes is not only considerably more copi- 
ous but much more spreading, the rays are bright white and well ex- 
serted, and the pappus scales of the disk flowers, while in length about 
equalling the achenes as in G. parviflora, have a very different form, 
being narrower and attenuate to a bristle-like apex. One of these 
specimens, collected by Mr. H. L. Clark at Pittsburg, Pa., was for- 
warded to Geneva for comparison with De Candolle’s G. parviflora, 
var. Aispida, and has been pronounced by M. Buser identical with that 
variety. Still a third plant of this genus quite distinct from the pre- 
ceding has been collected upon waste land about Camden, N. J., by 
Mr. C. F. Parker. It is characterized by considerable pubescence, 
distinctly purple rays, and disk pappus but half as long as the achene: 
Portions of this plant have been forwarded to Geneva and Kew for 
comparison with Vargasia Caracasana, DC., and Galinsoga hispida, 
Benth., and it proves identical with both, while garden specimens of 
gel’s G. brachystephana show it with scarcely a doubt to be the same- 
This shows that Dr. Gray was in error in regarding his G. parviflora, 
var. Caracasana the equivalent of De Candolle’s Vargasia Caraca- 
sana. While Mr. Parker’s plant from Camden, the weed-centre of 
the United States, by no means shows this species of tropical origin to 
established in our country, it may well be found that a portion © 
what has been hitherto referred to G. parviflora is this plant, espe 
cially as it is more or less extensively introduced in Eastern Europ? 
where it bears the name G. brachystephana, Regel. Summing UP me 
different forms as. well as the material at hand permits, we may 
divide them as follows. 
* Rays white, pappus of the disk flowers about equalling the achene. 
G. parvirtora, Cav. Smoothish, the upper internodes with # 2 
sparing sub-appressed pubescence: pappus of the disk flowers of spate 4 
