No. 8.— The Genus Antennaria in New England. 
By Merritt L. Ferxald. 
The genus Antennaria has recently attracted a remarkable degree 
of attention from American systematists. As treated in the 
standard manuals of the country, the northeastern states are given 
only one very polymorphous species, the so-called Antennaria 
plantaginifolia. During the past year, however, no less than eight 
articles have appeared, each of them either describing or discussing 
different plants which have passed under that name. Many inquiries 
have been made about the recent treatment of these plants ; and as 
the descriptions are either very scattered or else in journals hardly 
accessible to most New England botanists, the following synopsis 
of the New England species, as now understood, has been prepared. 
In determining these New England forms I have been greatly aided 
by Prof. E. L. Greene of the Catholic University at Washington, 
who has kindly compared specimens I have sent him with the types 
of some of his species, and who has furnished me specimens of 
other species about which there has been doubt. 
In a recently published article 1 I have discussed the species which 
seems most probably to be the plant to which Linnaeus referred as 
Gnaphalium plantaginifolium , and to which the name Antennaria 
plantaginea was subsequently given by Robert Brown. In the same 
place I have stated the reasons why this name of Brown is taken 
up for the plant. That question need not now concern us; but as 
there has been great doubt in regard to the plant taken to represent 
A. plantaginea , it seems advisable to reiterate and if possible to 
make clearer the discussion of this point which was taken up in the 
article above referred to. 
Of course the fundamental question to be settled, before describing 
new species in this group, is the identity of the Linnaean Gnapha¬ 
lium plantaginifolium. Linnaeus described this plant in 1753 2 , but 
his description is so brief and with so little of a specific character 
that it is necessary to rely upon the earlier descriptions cited by 
him. There are two of these descriptions referred to, one by 
3 Asa Gray bulletin, vol. 5, p. 91. 
2 Sp., eel. 1, p. 805. 
