86 Rhodora . [May 
, 
In his early treatment * of the genus, however, Dr. Gray placed the 
St. John valley plant, as well as Labrador specimens, under the Euro- 
pean O. campestris, DC., with * flores lutescentes, violaceo suffusi vel 
picti, rarius caerulei" ; but, as Professor Goodale's specimens were in 
over-ripe fruit, the description of the flowers (so far, at least, as the 
Maine plant was concerned) was doubtless based upon the common 
yellow O. campestris of Europe. In reality, the flowers of specimens 
from the region whence Professor Goodale brought his fruiting plants 
are, as stated, bright rose-colored (the color of Hedysarum boreale or 
nearly that of Desmodium canadense), but in the dried specimens they 
fade to blue. "Though he here referred the Maine plant to De Can- 
dolle's species Dr. Gray noted a slight difference, in the legumes, be- 
tween the Maine specimens and those from Europe. 
In his later treatment of the group, however, in 1884, the Maine 
and Quebec plants, and likewise those from Labrador, were referred by 
Dr. Gray? to O. campestris, DC., var. caerulea, Koch, it being stated 
that the corollas are generally blue, or blue and white, as in that Euro- 
pean form. In the Labrador plant, nevertheless, Dr. Gray found the 
* slight introflexion of the dorsal suture ” which he had previously noted 
in European specimens, but had found wanting in those from Maine.? 
Under the name O. campestris, DC., var. caerulea the Maine and 
Labrador plants were taken up by Dr. Watson in the sixth edition of 
the Manual; but, in the Illustrated Flora, Professor Britton has united 
all the Maine (and with it New Brunswick) Quebec and Labrador 
material as O. campestris, DC. (Spiesia campestris, Kuntze), giving 
the colors * white, yellowish white, or blue," as in the two European 
forms. 
Color alone is an unsafe criterion for the distinction of species, or 
even varieties, especially in such a group as Oxy/ropfis; but to one 
familiar with European figures of the yellow-flowered O. campestris 
there is little in the rose-colored flowers of the St. John valley plant to 
suggest specific identity. In size, too, the Maine plant so far exceeds 
European specimens of either O. campestris or its variety caerulea, that 
one hesitates at first sight to place the plants together. The Maine 
plant is so tall that, in 1893, after being compared with authentic 
specimens of O. campestris (at most 2 dm. high, with fruiting spikes 
4 or 5 cm. long) and its smaller variety caerulea, the St. John river 
plant (4 to 5 dm. tall, with fruiting spikes 10 to 12 cm. long) was 
I Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. vi. 235. 2? Proc. Amer. Acad. xx. 6. 3 1, c. vi. 236. 
