210 Rhodora [DECEMBER 
Toms River, New Jersey, an acquaintance with a conspicuous road- 
side weed belonging to this genus supplied the requisite interest to 
make a more careful study of these plants. 
In critically examining at the Academy of Natural Sciences the 
American material of these introduced species of Crepis, a point of 
some interest was brought to light. It was seen that of the three 
species credited to our area the greater number of specimens by far 
represented C. capillacea; a lesser number, C. tectorum; but none, C. 
biennis! It was somewhat disconcerting to have found no C. biennis. 
The material from this country bearing the name “Crepis biennis” 
had indubitably fallen into C. tectorum. From descriptions and from 
European material in the Academy Herbarium C. biennis had been 
found to be a robust, more or less rough-hairy plant with large heads 
of flowers (involucre about 1 em. tall, with its bracts pubescent on the 
inner faces), and achenes about 4-5 mm. long, olivaceous, 13-ribbed, 
not beaked — a well marked plant, very different superficially, as 
well as in its more obscure and technical characters, from the other 
Old World species accredited to America. 
A unanimity of opinion was seen in our American manuals in 
crediting the plant with a more or less extended range: in Gray’s New 
Manual, * N. E. to Pa. and Mich." and in the new edition of the 
Illustrated Flora, “Vermont to Pennsylvania, Michigan, and in ballast 
about the seaports." An interest naturally centered in the Pennsyl- 
vania occurrence. 
In Taylor's Flora of the Vicinity of New York it was found with some 
surprise to be “more common in Pa. than elsewhere." ! Reference to 
Keller and Brown's Flora of Philadelphia and Vicinity showed their 
knowledge of the plant to be based entirely upon two records in 
Porter's Flora of Pennsylvania — one for Easton, in Northampton 
County and another for Chester County.? On being verified in Por- 
ter's Flora these were found to constitute the entirety of his records 
for the state.? 
The Porter Herbarium had then only recently arrived at the 
Academy, and although in rather a disorganized condition for locating 
a small series like Crepis, the fact of two definite records in his Flora 
was incentive enough to search diligently for the basis of these records. 
1 Taylor, Fl. Vic. N. Y. 645 (1915). 
? Keller & Brown, Fl. Phila. & Vic. 311 (1905). 
3 Porter, Fl. Pa. 305 (1903). 
