North American Plants. 81 



A second species of the genus was shortly after received in a 

 collection of plants gathered by Dr. Gates in Alabama, speci- 

 mens of which were distributed by me under the generic name 

 of Macranthera ; but before I was prepared to publish my ac- 

 count of the new genus, it was described by Mr. Nuttall in the 

 Journal of the Academy of Philadelphia,* under the name of 

 Conradiafuschioidcs, that learned botanist not being aware that 

 n genus belonging to the order Gesneriacea;,t had already 

 been called Conradia by Martius, and hence Mr. Benlham, 

 in his revision of the genera of Scrophularineoe,j: has adopted 

 my name, which he found in Dr. Lindley's herbarium, but, 

 by mistake, quotes it as Mr. Nuttall's. In the recent Synop- 

 sis of the Gerardica:, published in the Companion to the Bo- 

 tanical Magazine, edited by Sir W. J. Hooker, this error is 

 corrected. 



Macranthera belongs to the tribe Gerardiecc of Bentham, 

 in the order Scrophularinea;, and diffevs from Gerardia in its 

 deeply parted calyx, tubular corolla with a small spreading 

 border, and in the much exserted stamens. In the elongated 

 stamens it resembles Esterhazya,|| but in that genus the calyx 

 is only 5-toothed, and the corolla tubular-ca'mpanulate: the 

 habit also is very different. Like nearly all the plants of the 

 tribe Gerardiea;, both species of Macranthera turn black in 

 drying. Mr. Bentham was only acquainted with M. fttschi- 

 oides, in which the segments of the calyx are longer than the 

 tube of the corolla, a character which he has introduced into 

 his definition of the genus ; but in M. Leconlii the calyx is 

 scarcely one-third the length of the corolla ; so that the generic 

 character must be somewhat modified. 



* Vol. vii. p. 88, t. ii. and xii. 



I Nova gen. el. sp. &c., a work which had not reached this country at the 

 date of Mr. Nuttall's publication. 



t Published in the Botanical Register for June, 1835. 



II Esterhazya of Mikan., and Benth. in Hook. comp. hoi. mag. p. 203 ; Virgu- 



laria, Martins Nov. gen. et. sp. 3, p ; Gerardia t) Dargeria, Cham, and 



Schlccht. (not of Benth.) 



VOL. IV. 11 



