Hab. Tierra del Fuego, from the Strait of Magalhaens to Cape Horn ; Banks and Solander and all future voyagers.
Apparently abundant from Yaldivia to Cape Horn ; the specimens from the northern locality being much the largest.
9. GNAPHALIUM, L.
1. Gnaphalitjm spicatum, Lain.; caule erecto v. ascendente simplici v. e basi ramoso pube arete appresso-cano, foliis anguste oblongo-spatliulatis inferioribus plerumque latioribus superioribus sub-decurrentibus super glabriusculis arachnoideisve, subter dense appresso-canis subargenteisve marginibus planis undulato- crispatulisve floralibus brevioribus linearibus. G. spicatum, Lam. Encycl. vol. ii. p. 757. DC. Prodr. vol. vi. p. 232. Hook, et Am. in Bot. Beechey, p. 31. Bot. Journ. vol. iii. p. 328. G. coarctation, Willi. Sp. PI. vol. iii. p. 1886. H.B.K. Nov. Gen. Am. vol. iv. p. 86. G. sphacelatum, H. B. K. Nov. Gen. Am. I.e. Dill.Hort.Elt/i.i. 133. G. consanguineum, Gaud, in Ann. Sc. Nat. vol. v. p. 105 et inFreyc.Voy .Bot.pAGl. D'Urville in Mem. Soc. Linn. Paris, vol. iv. p. 610, non Homb. et Jacq. in Foy. au Pole Sud. (Tab. CXIII).
Var. /3, Clionoticam, foliis omnibus in petiolum elongatum angustatis floralibus elongatis patentibus, floribus in capitulis subsessilibus aggregatis.
Hab. Falkland Islands ; Gaudichaiid, D' Urville and all succeeding voyagers. Var. ft Chonos Archipelago ; C. Darwin Esq.
One of the most variable and abundant of South American plants, from the latitude of Quito to the Falkland Islands, also occurring in Brazil.
I am inclined to consider the G. spicatum as the typical form of a species to which G. Americanum, G. purpureum, G. Pennsylvanicum (?), and probably several other North American forms should be referred, and from which they diifer no more than do G. strietum, Norvegicum, &c, from the G. sylvaticum of Europe. Authentic specimens of G. purpureum, which I have studied, are preserved in the British Museum, with Dillenius' hand-writing attached to them, and they accord perfectly with the figure in ’Hortus Elthamensis.' The plant is common in the middle and southern states of North America, and is very evidently a variety of the following, G. Americanum, which is generally more branched, with broader leaves and the inflorescence more elongated. It is a species of California and the southern United States, whence I have examined individuals with the woolly substance as appressed to the stem and under side of the leaves as in many Chilian ones of G. spicatum. Bertero's Chilian specimens of G. Berteriawum are apparently G. purpureum, between which and G. falcatum (through the varieties of the latter plant enumerated in De Candolle's 'Prodromus') there seems very little tangible specific difference.
An examination of copious suites of specimens of De Candolle's spicate group of GnaphaUum certainly rather tends than otherwise to the union of about sixteen species which it contains (as conjectured by Hooker and Arnott in the 'Botanical Journal'), and to reduce them to perhaps two, one of them, 67. sylvaticum, being European, and the other (of which G. spicatum is "the type) American. Generally speaking, the two forms, of the old and new
world, are sufficiently distinguishable by the eye, though I should feel it difficult to give a definition of either that would include all states of one and exclude all of the other. If future observations confirm this supposition a question will arise respecting the specific name; the oldest, or Linnsean (67. purpureum) applying to the variety, if that be called variety which is the less developed state of a plant more widely diffused under another form. The trivial appellation of 67. spicatum, again, though not botanically speaking strictly correct, is characteristic of all the aspects of both the European and American plants, and that of G. Americanum appears even more suitable to a plant so particularly abundant in both divisions of the new world.
