PHANTOMS IN THE FLORA OF THE BAHAMAS William T. Gillis A phantom is defined by Webster's New International Dictionary (unabridged, second edition) as an illusion, a fallacious appear-ance, a representation of something in appearance but not in reality. There are a number of such phantoms in the Bahama Flora (Britton and Millspaugh, 1920), described as being part of the flora, but which are not there at all, at least not as separate entities. Nathaniel Lord Britton recognized diversity in plants in a way somewhat typical of his period. If differences among specimens could be detected, he named the specimens as discrete species. He never used inf raspecif ic categories. He often fell prey to the same plague that has befallen other writers of insular floras, i.e., that of naming plants as distinct species when in fact the populations possess minor variations that differ from island to island. Britton seldom practised this proliferation of names with such fury as in the Rubiaceae. Most of his "species" in the Bahama flora were described from specimens which he did not collect. He was a keen observer, but may be looked upon in retrospect as having named specimens rather than populations. The "species" of Britton and Millspaugh are the phantoms dis-cussed in this paper. As a step in the revision of the Bahama flora in collaboration with George R. Proctor and Richard A. Howard, the author has examined much of the material available to Britton and Millspaugh when they wrote their flora over 50 years ago, especially type specimens. In addition, he has had the advantage of examining considerably more specimens, both in the field and in herbaria, than were available to Britton and Millspaugh. Additions to the flora have been noted (Gillis, Howard, and Proctor, 1973; Correll, 1973), and names have been updated for a substantial portion of the flora (Gillis, 1974). Now, a closer examination has been made of the so-called endemics within the flora as viewed by Britton and Millspaugh. Shortly after the original Bahama Flora was completed, Taylor (1921) analyzed the distributions as published in the flora and revealed that 12% of the flora was reported to be endemic, or about 120 species. This figure appears to be exceptionally high. The Bahama flora is essentially one which populated the islands during and since the Pleistocene. There has hardly passed enough time for such a degree of endemism to develop. Furthermore, the islands are surrounded on three sides by nearby land masses which 15U
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