162 Rhodora [SEPTEMBER 
Leavenworth discovered the plant at New Haven, “on the margin of 
the river, where it was covered by every tide”;! and later in the year 
Dr. Eli Ives of New Haven collected it in brackish soils “in great 
abundance in the Housatonic and in most of the rivers which empty 
into Long-Island Sound, within the range of the tide,” and he also 
stated in his publication that “it has been found this year [1817] by 
Messrs. Nuttall and Collins, on the banks of the Delaware near 
Philadelphia.” ? Dr. Ives felt that he had a new species, which he 
published with a very full description, as L. subulata? Simultaneously 
Nuttall was writing up the same plant and his description of it ap- 
peared while Dr. Ives’s description of L. subulata was in press, Nuttall 
identifying the plant as the European L. tenuifolia, but giving a very 
detailed account of his material, which came from “miry and gravelly 
banks of the Delaware, subject to the overflowings of the tide, in 
New-jersey and Pennsylvania, near Kensington, in the suburbs of 
Philadelphia” “also in Connecticut; — Dr. Ives, in a letter to Z. 
Collins, Esq.”3 Nuttall’s description was quite as detailed as that of 
Ives, but as noted, Nuttall treated his plant as L. tenuifolia Wolf. 
Somewhat later, in 1833, Rafinesque described the plant of New 
Jersey as a new genus, Ygramela, with the species Y. maritima * but 
with the pharisaical desire to be on both sides of the fence, like some 
modern authors, he added the comment: “If some Botanists will unite 
it to Limosella....they may call it L. maritima.” In his discussion 
Rafinesque laid much stress upon the habit of the plant, saying “it 
has the habit of Limosella, but forms a compact short turf.” 
All subsequent authors, so far as the writer can determine, have ` 
maintained our plant as identical with the European L. tenuifolia, 
sometimes as a variety, sometimes as a species, but with no statement 
of additional characters. A close inspection shows, however, that 
there are certain tendencies which are fairly constant and which indi- 
cate that our plant is probably best treated as a distinct species of 
eastern America. The leaves and habit have already been discussed. 
European authors are essentially unanimous in their statément that 
the corolla of L. aquatica is pink or flesh-color, only occasionally white; 
but the plant of the maritime sands and marshes of eastern America 
1 Ives, Am. Jour. Sci. i. 74 (1819). 
2 Ives, Trans. Physico-Medical Soc. N. Y. i. 441 (1817). 
3 Nutt. Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phil. i. 115, 116 (1817). 
4 Raf. Atl. Journ. i. 199 (1833). 
