49 
ft 
I was acquainted. The plant was not noticed anywhere else in the 
immediate vicinity. 
Since that time I have received specimens of what is evidently 
the same form from Dr. H. H, Rusby, collected at Franklin, Essex 
Co., from Prof. Porter, collected at Manunka Chunk, Warren Co., 
and have myself gathered a closely similar plant from the valley of 
the Delaware River, above Flatbrookville in Sussex Co. These last 
specimens were somewhat more erect in habic and not quite so 
broadly leaved as those from the other localities noted. It would 
therefore seem to be widely distributed through Northern New Jersey. 
In general aspect it closely resembles V. BeccabungUy L., of 
Europe, differing mainly in the almost universally sessile, more or less 
clasping leaves, V, Beccabunga being described and figured (Engl. 
Bot. PI. 655; Ettingshausen & Pokorny, Phys. Plant. Austr. t. 780) 
with petioles, which deCandolle (Prodr., x.,468) says are from one to 
two lines long, though in an English specimen they are a quarter inch. 
However, in a German specimen marked V. Beccabunga^ In the Meis- 
ner herbarium the leaves are as sessile as in the ones now referred to, 
and indeed it resembles these very greatly. There is some doubt, 
therefore, to which species my plants belong; indeed they would seem 
to connect the two in certain respects, as the characters of pod and 
pedicel are not sufficiently different for diagnostic characters. The 
flowers likewise are intermediate in size between those of the two 
species, though perhaps more like those of V, Anagallism this respect, 
but blue. As the species are considered distinct by foreign authori- 
ties, and as I do not wish to complicate synonomy, since genuine F, 
Beccabunga with strongly petioled leaves has not yet been detected in 
America, I propose that for the present we shall know this Northern 
New^ Jersey plant as K Anagallis, L., var. latifolia. Dr. Rusby's 
specimen above alluded to has acute leaves tapering from a broad 
sessile base. If the German specimen mentioned had been collected 
in this country I should unhesitatingly include it in the variety here 
proposed. 
V. Americana^ Schwein. (V. Beccabunga of older American 
authors) is generally sufficiently characterized by its oblong or ellip- 
tical-lanceolate, strongly serrated leaves, subcordate, truncate or even 
2.cute at base and distinct petioles to be easily separated from the two 
Pother species. English specimens labelled V, Beccabunga in the 
iorrey Herbarium resemble the common American form very closely, 
however, and in some native plants which I have examined the serra- 
tion is much less prominent than usual. 
K intermedia^ Schwein, {Amer. Journ, Sci. I., viii., 268,) referred 
*o K Americana by Dr. Gray (Syn. Flor. N. A., ii , pt. i., 287) is 
shown by Schweinitz's specimen in the herbarium of the Academy of 
Natural Sciences of Philadelphia to be F. Anagallis, as Mr. J. H. 
Redfield has noted on the sheet. 
The great variation in leaf-forms exhibited by these plants, with- 
out correspondingly wide variations in the inflorescence and fruit, 
gives credence to the supposition that they are but varieties of a single 
Widely diffused species, to which other described forms may well be- 
long. 
