1899] Fernald, — Two ambiguous loosestrifes 133 
unlike Z. guadrifolia; and the leaves, which in Z. guadrifolia are 
broader, generally less attenuate and not pale beneath, in the variety 
producta are nearly as pale as in Z. stricta. 
Another plant with the same affinities as Lys¢machia stricta, var. 
producta, but habitally very unlike it, was found in late July, 1898, 
by Mr. J. C. Parlin and the writer, in a damp thicket back of Wells 
Beach, Maine. This plant, which there occurred in great abundance, 
combines to some extent the characters of Z. stricta and L. guadrifolia. 
' Unlike Z. stricta, var. producta, however, it has the broad, hardly 
glaucous and strongly veiny whorled leaves of Z. guadrifolia, but the 
lower pedicels of the very long raceme are borne in the upper axils as 
in both those plants. The leaves change, though, very abruptly to 
short foliaceous bracts subtending the rather crowded pedicels. In 
the preparation of their Flora of North America, Torrey and Gray 
considered a similar plant — from White Plains, New York, and from 
Washington, D. C.— as a variety of Lystmachia quadrifolia, and it 
was noted as such (without a name) by Dr. Gray in the second edi- 
tion of the Manual. 
It has been suggested that these two plants, combining as they do 
certain characters of Lysimachia stricta and the earlier flowering Z. 
quadrifolia, may be hybrids between them. Such an origin for the 
plants is not impossible; but, as Z. s¢ricfa generally begins to flower 
after Z. guadrifolia has practically passed its flowering season, and as 
the one occurs usually in dry woods or open, dry soil, and the other in 
very wet places (though both are rarely found together), it does not 
seem probable that they would freely hybridize, nor, should hybrids oc- 
cur, that they would be found so abundantly over large areas. Further- 
more, the so-called variety producta was collected by the late Herbert 
A. Young on Oak Island, as a variety of Z. guadrifolia, but the true 
L. stricta was not included by him in his very exhaustive Flora of 
Oak Island. And at Wells Beach, where the other plant with a long 
raceme was found, Z. guadrifolia of the dry soil was quite past flower- 
ing in late July, when the more showy plant was at the height of its 
blooming. The opposite-leaved Z. stricta, however, with its definite 
shorter raceme, was then flowering near by. It is quite possible that 
these plants, in some of their characters suggesting hybrids between 
Lysimachia stricta and L. quadrifolia, may have had such origins. - 
Their great abundance, however, in the regions where they occur, and 
their very broad distribution, together with their constant and char- 
