26 Rhodora [FEBRUARY 
Is RHiNANTHUS CRISTA-GALLI AN INTRODUCED PLANT? — As 
long as all our New England Rhinanthus was supposed to be R. 
Crista-galli L. there was no question as to its being indigenous; its 
center of distribution was thought to be among the alpine or sub- 
alpine plants of the White Mountains, and its occurrence elsewhere 
seemed to indicate a distribution by no means unprecedented, since 
some plants found at a considerable elevation in Vermont and New 
Hampshire occur along the coast of Maine, a range recalling the 
distribution of the hermit thrush and some other distinctive White 
Mountain birds, which breed at sea level as far to the southwest 
as Casco Bay. But now that the White Mountain Rhinanthus is 
found to be a distinct and new species, the character of the stations 
in which the true R. Crista-galli occurs is worthy of notice. It seems 
to be always in fields and pastures and along roadsides; never away 
from human influence. 
The writer first saw the plant at Cushing, Maine; the attention 
of a farmer being called to it, as a novelty to the writer, he replied: 
“Yes, it is getting to be very common now-a-days.” At Cape Rosier, 
and at Eagle Island in Penobscot Bay, it was very common, but 
at both places the older farmers said that it was not there in their 
younger days; at Cape Rosier they called it “Mormon Weed,” as 
it made its appearance at the time of the Mormon excitement, that 
is, some time after 1850. It was reported to have been introduced 
into Eagle Island in hay from the mainland. While the question 
of its being a native or a naturalized foreigner can hardly be settled 
positively, it would seem that the probabilities are in favor of the 
latter theory.— F. S. Corns, Malden, Massachusetts. 
ACANTHOSPERMUM AUSTRALE AT LAWRENCE, MASSACHUSETTS.— 
A plant which grew last summer in a cabbage-garden in the suburbs 
of Lawrence attracted attention as something unusual and an un- 
successful effort was made to classify it. A specimen was sent to 
the Gray Herbarium and there determined as Acanthospermum 
austraiz (Loefl. Ktze., a peculiar member of the Compositae, which 
is ordinarily confined to tropical regions. ‘The cabbage field where 
the Acanthospermum grew had been fertilized by wool-waste from 
one of the mills, and as several strange plants were seen there the 
locality will be watched with interest another season.— E. 5. 
ScHNEIDER, Lawrence, Massachusetts. 
