1916] Macbride, — Amsinckia in the northeastern States 27 



Amsinckia ix the northeastern United States. — In ordering 

 up the genus Amsinckia in the Gray Herbarium I have discovered 

 that the speeies introduced and apparently somewhat naturalized 

 about Southington, Connecticut, is not A. lycopsoides Lehm., as sup- 

 posed, but A. barbata Greene. Until now, Greene's species has been 

 known only from Vancouver Island and has the general aspect of A. 

 lycopsoides as that species has been commonly interpreted. However, 

 A. barbata is very well marked, possessing salient characters which are 

 not found in any other one species: the sepals are bearded along the 

 edges with soft white hairs and the large nutlets are carinate and 

 sharply muriculate without being rugose except toward the tip. 

 Mr. Luman Andrews collected .1. barbata at Southington in 1895 

 and from a note accompanying the specimen it is evident that the 

 plant was first noticed in that locality in 1892. It was secured by 

 Mr. C. H. Bissell in 1S97 and 1898, and in 1899 Mr. Andrews men- 

 tioned it in Rhodora, i. 101, as "a recent introduction but.... 

 well-established" at Southington. The " Flowering Plants and Ferns 

 of Connecticut," issued in 1910, gives two additional stations, viz., 

 Hartford (Bissell), and Salisbury (Mrs. C. S. Phelps), but I have not 

 seen these latter specimens. 



The first published record of the introduction of this genus seems 

 to be by Rev. William P. Alcott in the Bulletin of the Essex Institute, 

 xiii. (i (1881). He there includes A. spectabUis F. & M. in a list of 

 "Introduced plants found in the vicinity of a wool-scouring estab- 

 lishment" at North Chelmsford (near Lowell), Massachusetts. 

 He mentions that it was "very abundant." In Dame and Collins's 

 Flora of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, 75 (188S) Alcott's speci- 

 men and also one from Lowell, secured by Dr. F. Nickerson, are listed 

 as A. intermedia F. & M. The Herbarium of the New England Botan- 

 ical Club contains one specimen from Lowell collected at Chase's 

 Woolen Mills in 1880 by Miss M. Swan. In the seventh edition of 

 Gray's Manual this specimen is included in .1. lycopsoides and the 

 range of this species is given as "locally established, eastern Massa- 

 chusetts to Connecticut." However, it is with no little hesitation 

 that I refer this specimen to the same species as the one established 

 at Southington, Connecticut (i. e. A. barbata). The Lowell plant 

 has smaller more rugose nutlets and accrescent sepals. It is spin- 

 dling, however, and gives the impression of abnormal development. 

 On the other hand it is entirely possible that all the Lowell specimens, 



