bo. 2 uid 
1922] Long,—Muscari comosum found in Philadelphia 17 
knowledge of one of the few stations for the Asiatic Geranium sibiricum 
in the Philadelphia region—in the United States, it may be said with 
almost equal significance. Another year, a new locality for Ellisia 
Nyctelea was discovered near Berwyn by. Miss Margaretta Atkinson. 
This is an exceedingly rare plant in the area about Philadelphia, and 
hitherto unknown from Chester County. More recently Dr. Keller 
brought to the Academy for identification the inflorescence of an 
unfamiliar species of Muscari, which, with the aid of the excellent 
illustrations in Coste’s Flora de la France and comparison with Old 
World specimens, was found to be the Eurasian M. comosum (L.) 
Mill. Dr. Keller, on our enquiring where this strange flower had been 
obtained, informed us that she was under the impression it had been 
found growing wild in the southern part of the city. This being 
a species apparently never recorded in America (as far as literature 
immediately at hand showed) Dr. Keller was urged to obtain full 
information about the occurrence of the plant. 
To those who know the country roads and the grassy meadows of 
southeastern Pennsylvania in early spring, a familiar sight is the plant 
with dainty little globular blue flowers in a close raceme, which is 
known here as Blue Bottles, Blue Bells, or at times a more bookish 
(but very appropriate) name, Grape Hyacinths—and to the botanist, 
Muscari botryoides. So frequent is this plant about Philadelphia 
that it is known to every child in the country districts, and to the 
botanist it often seems, unfortunately, “too common to collect." It 
is occasionally seen in old gardens but is much more frequently met 
thoroughly naturalized in open grassy places. Apparently the Phila- 
delphia area is its center of frequence but it has been collected south- 
ward to Washington, D. C., and northward to Massachusetts. An- 
other, similar, species, M. racemosum, with very narrow leaves and 
a more cylindric corolla occurs in a few places in the Philadelphia 
district but it is a very local and little known plant. There are 
scattered localities from at least Massachusetts to Virginia. Some 
stations are upon lawns, where it has proved to be a weed difficult of 
eradication. Probably it is as frequent along the Potomac above the 
city of Washington as anywhere in America. But M. comosum has 
not been known heretofore from this continent except as a rare plant 
in cultivation. 
The collector of the specimen of Muscari comosum, Miss Adelaide 
Allen, fortunately was able to designate exactly where it had been 
