180 Rhodora [OCTOBER 
Lespedeza procumbens has been growing for seventy years in a narrow 
strip by the side of a constantly traveled road, where the wheels of 
carriages occasionally pass over the more aspiring stems. The widen- 
ing of this road would surely destroy our only station. 
The following rare species now growing in Needham, or in its im- 
mediate neighborhood, are confined to extremely limited areas, and 
are therefore exposed to extermination by what has been termed, not 
inaptly from our point of view, “ the shabby tide of progress" ; and it 
may be of interest to have a record of their present status, 
Staphylea trifolia, L. In the second edition of Bigelow's Florula 
Bostoniensis, this is given as growing “In woods at Weston." The 
Middlesex County Flora, sixty-four years later, refers to Bigelow's state- 
ment, and says it has not since been reported in the county. It is not 
included in the Flora of Essex County, nor in Jackson's Worcester 
County List. I found it in Needham in 1883, growing among rocks, 
in low land in the woods, the tallest shrubs reaching a height of ten 
feet and a trunk diameter of one inch. It formed a small colony, 
remote from any house or public road, and could hardly have been 
planted by design in that retired forest. It usually flowers the first 
week in June, although in 1889 it was in full flower May 19. Itis 
quite conspicuous while in bloom, but the flowers are early deciduous, 
falling off entire at the joint of the pedicel, for which reason it rarely 
matures fruit here. 
Conioselinum Canadense, T. & G. This seems to bean extremely 
rare species in eastern Massachusetts. The only plants I have seen 
other than from Needham, were exhibited by the Massachusetts Horti- 
cultural Society in 1895, collected in Holbrook, Mass. William Oakes, 
in Hovey's Magazine of Horticulture, mentions finding “this long- 
overlooked species " in * Mast Swamp, Plymouth, Mass.," in 1839. I 
first met with it in Needham in 1883, near the source of Rosemary 
brook. It grows in very deep, black soil, which is constantly saturated 
with water, and shaded by large trees. It flowers from July 20 to the 
middle of August, and fruits abundantly. The leaves much resemble 
the fronds of Botrychium Virginianum. This is in danger of exter- 
mination, as the low land near it has been recently drained, preparatory 
to being offered for house-lots. 
Lonicera caerulea, L. A space of ten feet in diametér in a large 
open meadow is covered with this species, profusely in flower the first 
two weeks in May. It is cut down every year when the grass is mowed, 
yet continues to flourish in spite of this discouragement. 
