1921] Fernald, — Expedition to Nova Scotia 261 



"133. Polygonum buxifolium Nutt.l P. aviculare £ latifolium 

 Michx. Fl. Bor. am. I. p. 237. 

 Polygono aviculari simillimum; sed floribus semper pen- 

 tandris distinctum. Specimina Nuttalliana exacte cum 

 Sitchensibus conveniunt." 



From this it is evident that Bongard had a plant from Sitka which 

 he thought to be like Nuttall material which had been called P. 

 buxifolium and which was identified with P. aviculare $. latifolium 

 Michx., and it is noteworthy that Bongard's descriptive note was 

 borrowed directly from Nuttall and the name buxifolium from Mi- 

 chaux's description of P. aviculare /3. latifolium. Thus, in the or- 

 iginal publication of @. latifolium from "Kentucky et regione Illi- 

 noensi," a plant which seems to have been P. erectum L., Michaux 

 said "foliis lato-ovalibus, obtusis: quasi buxifolium [italicis mine]." 

 —Michx. Fl. Bor. -Am. i. 237 (1803). Later, in 1818, in his Genera, 

 i. 254, Nuttall described P. aviculare as having "flowers octandrous" 

 and maintained j3. latifolium [= ? P. erectum] with "leaves broad 

 oval, obtuse, flowers pentandrous, stem adscendent." As a matter 

 of fact, however, the stamens of P. aviculare vary from 5-8, so that 

 Bongard's descriptive phrase, "Polygono aviculari simillimum; sed 

 floribus semper pcntandris distinctum," borrowed directly from Nut- 

 tail's description of a plant of Kentucky and Illinois and applied to 

 a maritime plant of Sitka, does not differentiate the Sitkan plant and 

 the name P. buxifolium at best is a nomen seminudum based upon a 

 complete misconception. The Sitka material, called by Bongard 

 P. buxifolium, has little in common with P. erectum or any other 

 species of "Kentucky et regione Illinoensi" but, as shown by a sheet 

 preserved in the Prodromus herbarium at Geneva, is exactly P. Fow- 

 leri, a maritime plant of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Nova Scotia and 

 eastern Newfoundland and of the shores of the North Pacific from 

 Siberia and Alaska to Washington. The first real description of 

 this Sitka plant was that of Meisner in DeCandolle's Prodromus, 

 where a definite characterization was given — a diagnosis which ap- 

 plies equally well to the eastern material of P. Fowleri. Meisner's 

 description, published in 1856, was as follows: 



P. littorale, " @. buxifolium (Ledeb. ! fl. ross. 3, p. 532, sub P. 

 aviculari), caulibus abbreviates, foliis lineari-oblongis obtusis atten- 

 uato-subpetiolatis subeveniis, axillis 1-2-floris, achaenio calycem 

 paulo superante subnitido minute punctato obsolete striate In 

 ins. Sitka (Eschscholtz!)." 



