1916] Long, — Delphinium Consolida in America 173 



station. Dr. John K. Small, however, in his Flora of Lancaster County 

 [Pennsylvania] records the plant as "Rather common in fields and 

 waste places" in the central part of the county. A number of speci- 

 mens collected about Lancaster offer supporting evidence. Mr. 

 E. G. Yanatta, who has made a collection of some size of the more 

 conspicuous plants about Chestertown, Maryland, reports the species 

 as frequent at a locality near the town, in a field and upon the loose 

 gravel of nearby railroad banks. Mr. David MeCadden tells me that 

 the plant is common at one place near Norristown, Pennsylvania, 

 along the sides of a railroad-cut.' In the Martindale Herbarium is a 

 specimen of D. Ajacis bearing the label "Generally in grain fields, 

 Byberry, [Philadelphia]. Frequent 1862." 



On the other hand, correspondence and further communication 

 with numerous Philadelphia collectors, has brought forth in general a 

 rather different expression of opinion than the immediately foregoing. 

 Mr. Stewardson Brown, Conservator of the Herbarium of the Phila- 

 delphia Academy, assures me that he has never seen Delphinium Ajacis 

 except upon very evident dumps, mixed with other plant rubbish that 

 might have been thrown out of a yard in cleaning up. He has never 

 noted it any more established than Garden Petunias and Nasturtiums. 

 Dr. C. D. Pretz, the authority on the plants of Bucks County, Penn- 

 sylvania, writes me that the plant is found occasionally along road- 

 sides in Sellersville and other places. He says, further: "I of course 

 consider it very rare. My impression is that it is not at all natura- 

 lized, but merely an escape from gardens." Mr. Harold W. Pretz, 

 who has been energetically engaged for a number of years in thor- 

 oughly exploring Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, would accredit it with 

 only a spontaneous occurrence "on or in the vicinity of ash piles on 

 comparatively new dumped ground" 2 and is willing to subscribe to 

 an opinion "that it is not established anywhere in the local region." 

 Mr. Alexander MacKlwee, who made extensive collections in the 

 Philadelphia region some years ago and became very familiar with 

 the flora, writes me: "Concerning Delphinium Ajacis I would say 

 decidedly that it is not a really naturalized plant in our area — in east- 

 ern Pennsylvania or New Jersey. I have occasionally found it in 



1 The railroad has been run through a yard and garden, however, and the Larkspur is con- 

 tinually replenished as an escape from the old garden at the top of I lie cut. 



2 He makes an interesting suggestion that its behavior would lead one to suspect that it is a 

 plant thai depends on newly stirred ground to obtain a fooling. 



