48 Rhodora [Marcu 
This northern plant has only a superficial resemblance to the 
western whitish-green much firmer-leaved Comandra pallida; but it is 
the plant which has been generally taken by botanists of eastern and 
central Canada for C. umbellata, and under that name it was beauti- 
fully illustrated by Hooker in his Flora Boreali-Americana. There 
is a bare possibility that Michaux also may have had before him 
specimens of this northern plant when he named his Thesium corym- 
bulosum, with “fasciculis florum corymbuloso-terminalibus,”* but 
he cited 7. umbellatum, L. (Comandra umbellata, Nutt.) as a pure 
synonym and made no other provision for the common Allegha- 
nian plant. Furthermore, there is apparently nothing to show for 
Michaux's species in his very complete herbarium at the Jardin 
des Plantes in Paris; and it is probable that, as in case of his 
Anychia dichotoma (Queria canadensis, L.), Monarda coccinea (M. did- 
yma, L.), Campanula amplexicaulis (C. perfoliata, L.) etc., Michaux's 
name, Zhesium corymbulosum, was intended merely as a substitute for 
the obviously inappropriate Linnean name, 7. umbellatum. 
Rafinesque, in characteristic language, announced in 1836 that 
“the Thesium umbellatum of L. has been well described as a N. G. 
Comandra by Nuttal, but he neglected the species thereof, and so 
have done all our botanists, there are now 7 or 8 sp. of this G. and 
I will distinguish 5 sp. of it, all blended by our careless Authors." ? 
So far as it is possible to interpret Rafinesque's descriptions, his 5 
species seem to be phases of the Alleghanian Comandra umbellata 
and not at all referable to the more northern representative of that 
plant. 'This northern species, apparently, has never received the 
distinctive name it deserves, and I now take pleasure in associating 
with it the name of is discoverer in eastern Quebec, through whose 
interest it was possible for me to study the plant iu the field. 
COoMANDRA Richardsiana. Rootstocks elongate, freely branch- 
ing, superficial or very slightly covered by the loose soil: flowering 
branches slender, 0.5-2.5 dm. high, very leafy: the strongly ascend- 
ing green leaves from lanceolate to ovate, obtuse or acute, firm, with 
obscurely reticulate green veins: inflorescence corymbose, 1-3 cm. 
broad, of 1 to 6 2-6-flowered cymules on strongly ascending rays: 
bracts lance-subulate to ovate, mostly exceeding the short pedicels : 
calyx 3-5 mm. long, cleft to the middle into 5 oblong white (or finally 
1 Michx., Fl. Bor.-Am. i, 112. t Raf., New Fl ii, 33. 
