162 Rhodora [Auaust 
between its mouth and the site now occupied by Bismark, North 
Dakota. The actual type specimen is now in the herbarium of the 
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. There is also a small 
fragment of the same specimen, given to Dr. Gray many years ago, 
and now in the Gray Herbarium. Mr. Bayard Long has been kind 
enough to examine the Philadelphia specimen for us. He writes, 
“There are two quite similar plants, mounted on one of the old smaller- 
sized sheets characteristic of ‘Pursh’s specimen!’ (as they are marked) 
with an original ticket ‘Vicia Stipulacea’ and also pencilled on (as a 
copy of data on the back of the sheet) Louisiana, Bradbury’.” Mr. 
Long gives a detailed description of the specimens, which corresponds 
exactly with the fragment in the Gray Herbarium, and with our con- 
ception of the species formed from Pursh’s description. It is the 
abundant plant of the dry plains of Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, 
Wyoming and Colorado, which has commonly passed under the name 
of L. ornatus Nutt. This plant has simple or bushily branched striate 
4-angled wingless stems: stipules linear or linear-lanceolate with 
prominent nerves, often half the size of the leaflets, and sometimes 
slightly semi-sagittate, the lower lobe much shorter than the upper; 
the leaflets 4-10, opposite or sub-alternate, narrowly linear or linear- 
lanceolate, mucronate; the tendrils reduced to a mere bristle or 
wanting: the peduncles 2-7-flowered, exceeding the leaves; the flow- 
ers purple, large and showy, 2-3 cm. long. It is either quite glabrous, 
as is the type material, or densely sericeous throughout, the phase 
described as L. ornatus Nutt., var. incanus Smith & Rydb., and later 
raised by Dr. Rydberg to specific rank without any further discussion 
of its characters. 
Lathyrus polymorphus Nutt.,' excluding the synonym L. decaphyl- 
lus Pursh, is, as stated above, and as maintained by Nuttall, himself, 
a synonym of Vicia stipulacea Pursh, but as the latter name was 
published at an earlier date, and is not invalidated in any way, it can- 
not be rejected? 
1 Nuttall, T., Genera of N. Am. Pl. ii. 96-7 (1818). 
* Lathyrus stipulaceus Le Conte in Torrey’s Catalogue of the Plants of New York, 92 (1819), 
taken up by De Candolle (Prod. ii. 371, 1825) and Hooker (FI. Bor. Am. i. 160, 1840), was later 
reduced by Torrey himself (Fl. of the State of N. Y. i. 158, 1843) to the position of a pure syn- 
onym of L. myrtifolius Muhl., and has been so regarded ever since. According to the Inter- 
national Rules, the existence of this invalid homonym cannot invalidate the use of the specific 
name stipulaceus, for the plant now under discussion. Apparently Hooker applied Le Conte’s 
name to some plant other than the New York plant to which it was originally given, possibly 
to some form of L. venosus, but his interpretation of this name is of neither taxonomic nor 
nomenclatorial interest, as the name itself has obviously no validity. 
