As treated for the forthcoming revision of the Jepson Manual of the Flowering Plants of there are 14 species of Lessingia Cham. in California. Benitoa Keck and Corethrogyne DC. are considered to be congeneric with Lessingia. A forthcoming publication will provide more supporting data for the transfer of Benitoa occidentalis (H. M. Hall) Keck, Corethrogyne filaginifolia (Hook. & Arn.) Nutt., and C. californica DC. into Lessingia Cham., and discuss the treatment of Lessingia by Spence (1963). However, new combinations to accommodate these three taxa in Lessingia are needed for the revision of the Jepson Manual of the Flowering Plants of California. A brief justification for these transfers follows. Benitoa Keck has an annual habit, turbinate involucres, and disk corollas that are funnelform, yellow tinged with deep purple-red, and deeply lobed, and style-branch appendages that are linear; it shares these characters with several undisputed species of Lessingia (Howell, 1929; Spence, 1963). Benitoa is monotypic, and is found on serpentine-derived soils in southern San Benito, southwestern Fresno, and southeastern Monterey counties (Keck, 1956). Though Benitoa can be a much larger plant than most lessingias, in branching pattern, leaf morphology, pubescence, and glandularity it is very similar to them. Corethrogyne DC. taxa have a perennial herbaceous habit, turbinate to hemispheric involucres, disk corollas that are linear, yellow, and shallowly lobed, and style-branch appendages that are tufted; they share these characters with several other undisputed species of Lessingia (Spence, 1963). Corethrogyne has been treated as having various numbers of taxa (Canby, 1927; Howell, 1929; Keck, 1959), because it is extremely variable both within and between populations. Here it is treated as having a single species with two highly polymorphic varieties, based on an unpublished revision of Corethrogyne by J. P. Saroyan, D. R. Parnell, and J. L. Strother. The range of variation in vestiture of the foliage, the capitulescence, and the shape of the involucres of Corethrogyne taxa is all encompassed by that of Lessingia. The three genera have been maintained in the past because taxa of Lessingia sensu stricto are all eradiate and the others have ray florets, and because the rays of Benitoa are yellow while those of Corethrogyne are purple. The presence or absence of ray florets is probably only a single-gene character (Jackson & Dimas, 1981; Gottlieb, 1984). Given that species of Lessingia have yellow, white, pink, or purple disk corollas, it does not seem logical to use cor lla color as a generic marker. Also, the members of all three genera have phyllaries with resin-canals a d (usually) gland-tipped apices, obconic, trinerved, mottled achenes with a pappus of several (late-)deciduous bristles, and chromosome numbers of n = 5. In addition, they share at least 20 unique restriction site mutations (and differ among themselves in none) found among 63 taxa of Astereae in a chloroplast DNA study using 17 enzymes (M. Lane, unpublished data). Lessingia filaginifolia (Hook. & Arn.) M. A. Lane, comb. nov. Basionym: Aster ? filaginifolius Hook. & Arn., Bot. Beech. Voy. 146. 1833. Corethrogyne californica DC. [var.]filaginifolia (Hook. & Arn.) Kuntze, Rev. Gen. P1. 1: 330. 1891, illegit. TYPE: U.S.A. [California]: presumably Lay and/or Collie s.n. (Beechey voyage) (holotype, E fide Saroyan et al.). Kuntze's combination is illegitimate because its basionym, Asterfilaginifolius, is older than Corethrogyne californica. Lessingia filaginifolia (Hook. & Arn.) M. A. Lane var. californica (DC.) M. A. Lane, comb. et stat. nov. Basionym: Corethrogyne californica DC., Prodr. 5: 215, 1836. TYPE: Nova California, Douglas, 1833 (holotype, G-DC fide Saroyan et al.; isotypes, BM, K fide Saroyan et al.; microfiche, KANU). Lessingia occidentalis (H. M. Hall) M. A. Lane, comb. nov. Basionym: Haplopappus occidentalis H. M. Hall, Carnegie Inst. Wash. Publ. 389: 214. 1928. Benitoa occidentalis (H. M. Hall) Keck, Leafl. W. Bot. 8: 25-40. 1956. NOVON 2: 213-214. 1992. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.85 on Tue, 23 Aug 2016 05:38:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms