IRbofcora 



JOURNAL OF 



THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 



Vol. 4 August, 1902 No. 44 



TARAXACUM PALUSTRE IN AMERICA. 

 M. L. Fernald. 



Mr. E. Williams Hervey sent me in May last a package of Dande- 

 lions from New Bedford, Massachusetts, containing Taraxacum 

 erythrospermum and a larger-headed plant which he was unable to 

 identify satisfactorily either with that species or T. officinale. The 

 plant had the general aspect of the latter species, but the short deltoid 

 erect outer bracts of its involucre suggested T. erythrospermum. 

 From this species, recently recognized l as well established if not 

 indigenous in New England, Mr. Hervey's plant differed in having 

 quite plane or Mat bracts to the involucre and greenish brown achenes, 

 and in the slightly cleft or even merely undulate-dentate leaves. A 

 comparison showed the plant to be uncpiestionably Taraxacum 

 palustre. DC. 2 of Europe and northern Asia. 



Taraxacum pa/ustre is variously treated by European authors. By 

 most, including Nyman, Reichenbach, Lange, Hornemann, and 

 Hooker & Jackson, it is treated as a thoroughly distinct species; by 

 others, as Bentham & Hooker, as a subspecies of T. Dens-Iconis (T. 

 officinale) ; while by Blytt it is considered a variety of the common 

 species, and is called T. officinale, Weber, var. palustre, Blytt. 1 



Whether the plant is clearly distinct from Taraxacum officinale it 

 has been impossible satisfactorily to determine the past season. 

 Certain observations, however, are worth recording, that other 

 observers may be prepared to study the tendencies of the dandelions 

 in their own regions during the next spring. 



1 Fernald, Bot. Gaz. XX. 323. 

 2 Fl.Fr. IV. 45. 

 3 Norg. Fl. i. 619. 



