6 Rhodora [JANUARY 
ERIOCAULACEAE. 
ERIOCAULON. 
E. septangulare With. Borders of ponds, emersed or in water of 
varying depth, common. 
XYRIDACEAE. 
XYRIS. 
X. caroliniana Walt. Wet places, rather common. Not reported 
from southeastern towns. 
X.flexuosa Muhl. Wet places, rare, Essex Co. (no date. Specimens 
in Herb. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist.) ; Concord (Miss F. C. Prince, no date. 
Specimens in Herb. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist.); Boston (— Boott, 1830. 
Specimens in Herb. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist.’). 
X.Smalliana Nash. Wet places on borders of ponds; Acton, Essex, 
Littleton, Milton, Tewksbury, also shores of Ponkapaug Pond in 
Canton and Randolph. Wm. Oakes collected this species in a pond 
in Middleton before July 31, 1848, the date of his death. Specimen 
in Herb. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. 
1 It is possible that these specimens were collected by William Oakes, but the hand- 
writing on the label is not sufficiently conclusive. 
2 There is a special interest attaching to these specimens of Boott's. They are four in 
number, three of them being mounted and one loose in a paper pocket. The label reads 
“Xyris Jupicai, Boston. From Boott, 1830." The first three words are in the hand- 
writing of Francis Boott, while the last three are in an unknown hand and are inserted 
on the lower left-hand corner of the label. The date, 1830, evidently refers to the time 
when Francis Boott presented the specimens. He could not have collected the plants 
in Boston in 1830, for Dr. Asa Gray says, in an obituary notice published in the Amer. 
Journ, Sci. and Arts for March, 1864, ‘‘In the year 1820 Dr. Boott crossed the Atlantic 
for the last time, and, proceeding to London, entered upon the study of medicine." Dr. 
Boott might have collected the specimens before he sailed for Europe. It does not seem 
at all likely that his brother William made the collection, for his active work began much 
later, after 1853 or thereabouts, as the numberless labels, accompanying his specimens 
deposited in the Gray Herbarium, show. 
It seems very likely that the plants were collected by another brother, John Wright 
Boott, about whom comparatively little is known, He was born in 1788 or 1789 and 
lived with his brother William on the present site of the Revere House, Boston. A beauti- 
ful garden adjoined the house. In the summer of 1816 John ascended Mt. Moosilauke 
in New Hampshire with his brother Francis, but the most interesting fact that we know 
of him is in connection with Prenanthes Boottii (DC.) Gray, the small composite of the 
alpine regions of northern New England and New York.  Doubtless few botanists are 
aware that this plant was named for John Wright Boott. He collected it in the White 
Mountains of New Hampshire in 1829 and sent it to London to his brother Francis, who 
in turn sent it to Geneva to De Candolle. De Candolle named the plant for the collector 
Nabalus Boottii and kept the specimen in his herbarium in Geneva, Prof. M. L. 
Fernald, when in Geneva in:1903, photographed the sheet, and prints are at the Gray 
Herbarium. The original label is in Francis Boott's handwriting and reads as follows, 
“ Prenanthes ? from White Mountains North America above the woods J. W. Boott 
1829." Another label in DeCandolle's handwriting reads, ‘‘Nabalus Boottii DC." John 
Wright Boott died by suicide on March 7, 1845, and lies buried at Mount Auburn. [W. D.] 
