Campanulaceae (excluding Lobeliaceae) in North America comprise four genera and 35 species of annual, biennial, and perennial herbs. Generic and specific circumscriptions have been treated variously, and studies of seeds have been few and limited. In this study, seeds of all but one of the native North American species and of selected Eurasian putative relatives were examined with the light and scanning electron microscope. Characteristics of the seeds and their surface cells are described and compared. The seed-coat morphology was found to be relatively uniform, but there are recognizable generic patterns and a number of distinctive individual species. Seeds of Campanula americana, C. divaricata, and the other eastern species of Campanula are each distinctive and do not show the relative uniformity seen within Githopsis, Triodanis, Heterocodon. and the western species of Campanula. Seeds of the recently rediscovered C. robinsiae and of the wide-ranging C aparinoides are highly distinctive and would appear to set each of these species apart within the genus. However in Triodanis, T. texana stands apart. Seeds oi Campanula reverchonii resemble those of Triodanis colorasigni coat sculpturing and ornamentation is given.The Campanulaceae, in the strict sense (ex-Australia and South Africa. Campanula, the eluding Lobeliaceae), are a worldwide family of northern counterpart, is the largest genus of the 35 to 40 genera and perhaps 800 species. Esti-family, comprising some 300 species. It is conmates of the number of species have ranged from fined to the north temperate zone, with its center 600 to 1,000 (Avetisian, 1967; Gadella, 1974; of diversity in Eurasia. Only 23 species occur in Kovanda, 1978). The species are largely peren-North America (Shetler, 1963; Heckard, 1969; nial herbs, but some are annuals, biennials, or Morin, 1980). Three-fourths of these are narrow even small shrubs. The family is confined mainly endemics. Nearly half (11 spp.) of the North to north and south temperate regions, being re-American species occurs in the Califomia Floplaced in tropical and subtropical regions by the ristic Province, and, of these, seven species are endemic there. The family Campanulaceae is of similar size Lobeliaceae. Only Wahlenbergia, with possibly 100 species or more (Thulin, 1975; Carolin, pers. comm., 1981), is well developed in, and in fact and diversity in Europe and Soviet Eurasia. F/om restricted to, south temperate regions, especially Europaea (Tutin, editor, 1 976) records 1 3 genera 1 Lehlonen, M.-J. Mann, S. Wiser, and W. Brown 1980-1 the support of the Smithsonian Institution.
