I4 Rhodora [JANUARY 
treatments, especially of the Linnaean M. mollis, Dr. Robinson 
while in London the past summer, examined the material of M. fistu- 
losa and M. mo//isin the Linnaean herbarium. There he found 
two sheets pinned together. One of these was marked “1” by 
Linnaeus and had later been marked in another hand (presumably 
of Sir James Edward Smith) “fistulosa.” It was the custom of Lin- 
naeus to number the sheets in his herbarium to agree with the numbers 
of the species in his Species Plantarum, and his “1” may thus be 
taken to indicate M. fistulosa, the first of the genus mentioned in Spe- 
cies Plantarum. ‘This plant which represents the species apparently 
intended by Linnaeus as M. fistulosa has a hirsute stem and oblong- 
lanceolate finely and regularly serrated leaves which are hirsute on 
the midnerve and soft-pubescent on the surface beneath. In these 
characters the plant agrees well with a specimen collected by Dr. J. K. 
Small in middle Holston Valley, Virginia, July 20, 1892, and com- 
pared by Dr. Robinson with the Linnaean specimen. 
The second sheet is of a plant cultivated at Upsal, and marked by 
Linnaeus “ ZZ. U. fistulosa.” In the same hand, however, is the word 
“ mollissima.” This plant has canescent appressed (not hirsute) 
pubescence and it agrees with a Maine specimen collected by Mr. 
J. C. Parlin and compared by Dr. Robinson with the Linnaean plant. 
Considering the phrase in the original characterization: “ Simillima 
M. fistulosae, at caule duplo majore, minime piloso ut in illa," and 
the “ mollissima " written by Linnaeus upon the sheet, we are justi- 
fied in considering the second specimen the type of M. mollis. 
The confusion surrounding the name Monarda mollis began with 
Willdenow whose plant, at least as distributed from the Paris Garden 
in 1814, has the spreading pubescence of the Linnaean M. fistulosa. 
Bentham, too, applied the name mollis to plants different from the 
Linnaean species. His M. fistulosa, var. mollis was based upon M. 
mollis, L. and M. menthaefolia, Graham, two plants of rather different 
habit; while a sheet of specimens in the Gray Herbarium, sent out 
by Bentham to illustrate the Genera and Species of Labiatae, contains 
branches of both M. mollis and M. fistulosa of Linnaeus. Thus it is 
not surprising that the name Monarda mollis should have been of 
doubtful significance in our flora. Dr. Gray in his study of the group 
for the Synoptical Flora, seems to have interpreted the original plants 
correctly, but the minutely canescent M. mollis of Linnaeus is so 
constant in the character of its pubescence that its recognition as 
