IRbofcora 



JOURNAL OF 



THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 



Vol. 18. March, 1916. No. 207. 



LIMONIUM IN NORTH AMERICA AND MEXICO. 

 S. F. Blake. 



(Plates 118 and 119.) 



The first mention of a North American Sea Lavender in literature 

 seems to have been made by Gronovius 1 in 1743. This record, based 

 on Clayton's number 573, now in the British Museum, was included 

 by Linnaeus 2 in the synonymy of Statice Limonium in the first edition 

 of the Species Plantarum. Clayton's specimen has a peculiar calyx 

 not matched by any other specimen examined and may be a hybrid 

 of L. carolinianum and L. trichogonum. 



Walter's Statice caroliniana, described from the coast of Carolina 

 in 1788, was retained by Pursh and Nuttall but synonymized with 

 S. Limonium by other early writers on American botany. Boissier 

 in 1848 recognized it as distinct but confused two species under the 

 name. Eight years later it was reduced by Gray to varietal rank 

 under S. Limonium, a disposition maintained in the Synoptical Flora 

 and in the sixth edition of Gray's Manual. Ever since its original 

 publication the name has almost universally been considered to apply 

 to the common northeastern species with a rather large calyx strongly 

 pilose on the ribs and with acuminate lobes, but examination of 

 Walter's type in the British Museum shows it to belong to the south- 

 ern plant with smaller quite glabrous calyx with deltoid obtuse lobes 

 which recent authors, following Gray, have identified with Statice 

 brasiliensis Boiss. 3 Type material of the latter in the Kew Her- 



i Gron. Fl. Virg. ed. 1. 150 (1743). 



! L Sp. i. 274 (1753). 



» Boiss. in A. DC. Prod. xii. 644 (1848). 



