1922] Nelson,—Introduced Species of Lathyrus 75 
INTRODUCED SPECIES OF LATHYRUS IN THE NorTHWEST:—Pro- 
fessor Parker's report of the occurrence of Lathyrus Nissolia at Pull- 
‘man, Washington (RHoporA 23: 246) adds another species to the 
already considerable representation of the genus in the North Pacific 
States. The writer is able to report four introduced species from 
Western Oregon, three of which may be safely regarded as permanent- , 
ly established, and none of which has found mention in the published 
manuals purporting to cover the region. 
The most abundant of these is L. latifolius L., originally introduced 
as an ornamental garden plant, which has spread so rapidly as to have 
become almost a pest, particularly in the city cemetery at Salem. 
It seems able to resist the aridity of our rainless summers better than 
most of the native plants, and its showy clusters of large pink, purple 
or white flowers are a familiar sight along roadsides and railroad 
tracks during the long dusty summer. 
L. Aphaca L. is a little yellow-flowered annual, frequent in culti- 
vated ground and grassy roadsides, and noteworthy on account of 
the total absence of a leaf-blade, the petiole appearing as a tendril, 
and the function of the leaf being performed by a pair of broad foli- 
aceous stipules. 
L. hirsutus L. appeared in Salem in 1919, scrambling over other 
vegetation along the grassy border of a street, and has since spread 
rapidly over a considerable area, showing a vigor of growth that would 
suggest the possibility of utilizing it as a forage-plant. It ripens 
abundant fruit, and seems to have become a permanent member of 
our local flora, though there is no report of its occurence at any 
other Oregon station. 
In the same year 1919, a botany pupil in the high-school brought 
in a plant found growing among tall grass on the street-border oppo- 
site the school-building, with solitary dark-red axillary flowers, which 
was determined for us at the Gray Herbarium as Lathyrus sphaericus 
Retz. About a dozen plants in all were found, which matured seed; 
but no trace of the stranger has appeared in subsequent seasons, 
either at this or any other station, so that we must regard the species 
as one of those transient foreign waifs which so frequently and un- 
accountably appear in Western Oregon. Specimens of all the above 
species have been deposited in the Gray Herbarium. 
