36 Rhodora [FEBRUARY 
HELIANTHEMUM BICKNELLII AND H. PROPINQUUM. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
HELIANTHEMUM Bicknellii, nom. nov.— H. majus Bicknell, Bull, 
Torr. Bot. Cl. xxi. 259 (1894), not H. majus (L.) BSP. Prel. Cat, 6 
(1888), which was merely a nomenclatorial transfer of Lechea major L. 
Sp. Pl. i. 90 (1753). Since Bicknell cites no type the following may 
stand as TYPE: fruiting material from gravelly bank, Bangor, Maine, 
August 7, 1908, Fernald in Gray Herb. 
Dr. S. F. Blake has recently shown,! as had already been suspected, 
that the Linnean Lechea major is identical with Cistus canadensis 
L. Sp. Pl. i. 526 (1753) and Helianthemum canadense (L.) Michx, FI. 
Bor.-Am. i. 308 (1803). Consequently the name H. majus can no 
longer be applied to the stout and erect hoary-canescent plant to 
which, following Bicknell's clear discrimination, it has for a quarter- 
century been applied. Blake consequently has taken up for Bick- 
nell’s H. majus the name H. propinquum Bicknell in Britton, Man. 
ed. 2, 1069 (1905), stating that from the herbarium material he was 
unable * to discover any characters which seem to justify the separa- 
tion of the plant as a species distinct from the H. majus of our present- 
day manuals — a conclusion in which I have the support of Prof. 
Fernald." 
Had Dr. Blake, however, accompanied the present writer and Mr. 
Bayard Long during the summer of 1918 in a somewhat intensive 
study of the flora of Cape Cod he would at once have seen that H. 
propinquum has little in common with * H. majus of our present-day 
manuals," the plant here proposed as H. Bicknelli. H. Bicknellüi 
is a coarse plant, the coarsest of our species, with the erect slightly 
cespitose stems 3-6 dm. high; H. propinquum, as well characterized 
by Bicknell, is lower, with much more slender, flexuous stems 1-3 dm. 
high, these sometimes arising separately (sometimes at intervals of 1 
dm. or more) from the often slender rootstock. In H. Bicknellii the 
petaliferous flowers, on pedicels 0.3-1 em. long, expand on Cape Cod 
as on Nantucket? from the 10th of July to the 10th of August, but 
H. propinquum, with pedicels becoming 1-1.6 em. long, was in con- 
1 Ruopora, xx. 49 (1918). 
? See Bicknell, Bull. Torr. Bot. Cl. xl. 614 (1913). 
