96 Rhodora [May 
A MISLEADING ADDITION TO THE STATE FLORAS 
OF NEW ENGLAND. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
A THOROUGHLY reliable regional list, such as we have for Mt. 
Desert', Vermont’, the Metropolitan Park System of Boston’, Nan- 
tucket*, Connecticut®, southern New Jersey? and numerous other areas, 
is an indispensable part of the working equipment of the students of 
a flora, and it is unfortunate that we lack such presentations of 
the floras of many interesting areas. A regional list to be of any 
value ( models like those above cited ) must be based exclusively upon 
accurately determined specimens and discriminatingly viséed records; 
and, since such exacting and scholarly work requires much time as 
well as extreme patience and accurate knowledge of plants, it is nat- 
ural that such reliable publications are unusual. Many of them are 
in the course of preparation but, from their nature and the standards 
of their authors, they cannot be simply compiled from miscellaneous 
sources without critical inspection of each item and, consequently, 
they are slow in reaching completion. In the meantime lists pre- 
pared by those who do not realize the confusion created by inaccur- 
ate publication are being finished, and, singularly enough, although 
the painstaking and authoritative works which it has taken years to 
complete are often kept from publication owing to the lack of financial 
support, there seems to be money readily available for the publication 
and distribution of inaccurate lists. 
The latest addition to the list of state floras’ of New England was 
published with laudible zeal but, unfortunately, without clear under- 
standing of the difficulties of accurately preparing such a list. Some 
(but by no means all) of the recently recorded Rhode Island stations 
published in Rnopona4 and elsewhere have been compiled and an 
attempt made to translate the names used in Bennett's Plants of 
Rhode Island (1888) into a more modern nomenclature. Even such 
a method, as every experienced systematist knows, requires the ut- 
1 Rand and Redfield, Flora of Mouvt Desert Island, Maine. 1894. 
? Brainerd, Jones and Eggleston, Flora of Vermont. 1900; Flora of Vermont,—Vt. 
Agric. Expt. Sta. Bull. no. 187. 1915. 
3 Deane, Flora of the Blue Hills, Middlesex Fells, Stony Brook and Beaver Brook 
Reservations. 1896. 
4 Bicknell, The Ferns and Flowering Plants of Nantucket,—Bull. Torr. Bot. Cl. 
Xxxv. 49-62 (1908) and in succeeding instalments to ibid, xlvi. 423-440 (1919). 
5 Graves and others, Catalogue of the Flowering Plants and Ferus of Connec- 
ticut. 1910. 
6 Stone, Plants of Southern New Jersey. 1911. 
7 The Ferns, Fern Allies and Flowering Plants of Rhode Island. A Revision 
of the first fifty-eight pages of James L. Bennett's “Plants of Rhode Island" pub- 
lished by the Providence Franklin Society in 1888. Published by the Providence 
Franklin Society, 1920. 
