1916] Weatherby and Blake, — Galium pilosum and Varieties 191 



hope to be the final retirement from our lists of the name Galium bcr- 

 mudense L. which has been associated with this and with two or three 

 other species of Galium and Relbunium within recent years. 



All the material of Galium pilosum in the Gray Herbarium and the 

 Herbarium of the New England Botanical Club from north of a line 

 running from western North Carolina and adjacent Kentucky to 

 Arkansas and Texas has the stem more or less pubescent on the 

 angles, usually densely so but sometimes only sparsely, with generally 

 straightish pilose or pilose-hispid hairs, usually reaching up to or into 

 the inflorescence, but sometimes confined to the lower portion of the 

 plant. Occasionally some of the hairs are more or less recurved or, 

 more rarely, inflexed. In the Cape Cod area, in the sand-plain re- 

 gions of Connecticut and New Jersey and in the mountains of North 

 Carolina occurs an extreme of this form having the sides of the stem 

 as well as the angles more or less densely pubescent. At first it 

 seemed that this plant might well be distinguished as a variety, but 

 careful study of the available material has shown too great a propor- 

 tion of specimens variously intermediate between the two extremes 

 to make it desirable, in the present state of our knowledge, to attempt 

 to separate them, although further field study may yet make this pos- 

 sible. The following specimens may be cited as representative of 

 this more pubescent extreme: — New Jersey: sand-hills, Atlantic 

 City, July 14, 1870, C. F. Parker. North Carouna: summit of 

 Cedar Cliff Mt., alt. 3400 ft., July 16, 1898, Biltmore Herb. no. 3498b. 

 To the less pubescent of these two forms belongs the Aiton type of 

 Galium jtilosum (New York, Dr. Martin) in the British Museum. 



From Virginia to Florida and Texas there occur two very distinct 

 varieties of G. pilosum, hitherto confused under the name var. punc- 

 tieulosum (Miehx.) T. & G. One of these has oval leaves as in the 

 typical form of the species, pubescent with incurved, short, stiff hairs, 

 and stem more or less densely beset on the angles with short, in- 

 curved, hook-like hairs distinctly harsher than the hairs of the typical 

 form; the other, with more narrowly elliptic leaves and absolutely 

 glabrous stem, might conceivably be regarded as specifically distinct 

 but seems on the whole, from its identity in all other characters and 

 from the presence of an occasional intermediate, better considered as 

 worthy only of varietal rank. Dr. H. Lecomte and M. F. Gagnepain 

 of the Paris Museum, to whom sketches and descriptions of these 

 two forms were sent, have kindly examined the Michauxian type of 



