166 Rhodora [JuLy 
THE MISSOURI RHEXIAS. 
B. F. Busa. 
THe large bright-colored flowers of the Meadow Beauties must 
be very attractive objects in the sandy swamps of the Eastern and 
Southeastern States, but in Missouri these plants are so rare that but 
few collectors have ever seen them growing, and the specimens pre- 
served in the herbarium are very few. Having received from E. J. 
Palmer some fine specimens of a species of Rhexia, collected at Alba, 
Missouri, in 1909, I was more than commonly interested in determin- 
ing the species to which these specimens belonged, as I had not seen 
any plants from so far North as this locality. 
I was at first strongly inclined to regard these specimens as belong- 
ing to an undescribed species, but after a short study of the plants, 
I referred them to Rhexia mariana L., a species that had been collected 
several times in Missouri. 
However, feeling some doubt as to my disposition of these speci- 
mens, I took up the study of the species of Rhexia that had been 
collected in Missouri, and through the kindness of Prof. Trelease 
was enabled to examine all of the Missouri material of this genus, 
as well as some specimens from other States, preserved in the Herba- 
rium of the Missouri Botanical Garden. 
A careful comparison of this material satisfied me that the plants 
collected by Mr. Palmer belong to an undescribed species, and a 
visit to the locality where the plants were collected, on July 24, 1910, 
further convinced me of their distinctness from any described species. 
The locality where this new species of Rhexia occurs, is some four 
miles north of Alba, Missouri, in Jasper County, on a high prairie, 
about 1100 feet elevation, along little rocky draws that lead to the 
lower prairie, a place one would be least likely to think of as the 
habitat of any species of Rhexia, a genus which, as is well known, is 
commonly found in sandy swamps and bottoms. 
SYNOPSIS OF THE MISSOURI SPECIES OF RHEXIA. 
Stem quadrangular, wing-angled, with slightly concave sides, low, simple or 
somewhat branched; leaves sessile, narrowly to broadly elliptical, 2-6 
em. long, 10-25 mm. broad, pointed at both ends, broadest at about the 
