Rbodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 21. December, 1919. No. 252. . 
NOTES ON THE AMERICAN OCCURRENCE OF CREPIS 
BIENNIS. 
BAYARD Lona. 
THE large genus Crepis is represented in the eastern United States 
by certain species of the Old World. These are weedy plants with 
somewhat the aspect of Hieraciums and are found introduced on road- 
sides, in fields, and about waste places. Of various species of the 
genus collected in this country from time to time all but a few have 
proved to be merely waifs. There has been a concensus of opinion, 
however, that four species have become sufficiently well established 
here to be recognized as elements of our flora. With the exception of 
Crepis pulchra, known only very locally from Virginia, there are com- 
monly accredited to our region: Crepis tectorum, well characterized 
by involute cauline leaves; C. capillaris (C. virens of the older manuals) 
and C. biennis, both with plane stem-leaves, the former with small heads 
of flowers and 10-ribbed achenes, the latter with rather large heads and 
13-ribbed achenes. 
In the Philadelphia area these plants are to be considered as rather 
rare introductions, or at least only locally frequent. The greater part 
of our material is from ballast ground, collected many years ago, but 
recently scattered specimens have been coming in to the Herbarium 
of the Philadelphia Botanical Club from roadsides and cultivated 
ground — frequently grass-lands or newly-seeded lawns. In the 
absence of any personal experience in the field with the genus these 
specimens had never aroused sufficient interest to cause them to be 
more than very casually examined. In the early autumn of 1915 at 
