138 Rhodora [AUGUST 
taking up a new combination in place of Nymphaea variegata, it seems 
appropriate to record our conclusions. 
Since Miller’s original publication of Nymphaea variegata, an 
earlier specific name, interpreted as belonging to it, has come to light 
and the northern plant with floating leaves is rechristened Nymphaea 
americana (Provancher) Miller & Standley,’ based upon Nuphar 
americana Provancher, Fl. Can. 28 (1862), "excluding synonyms." 
Nymphaea variegata or N. americana is described by Miller & Standley 
as having “Floating leaves usually 17 to 28 cm. long and 11 to 22 cm. 
wide." This statement of the measurements is very unfortunate, 
for to those who are familiar with the plant in the area of its greatest 
development, British America and the northernmost States, it must 
immediately throw an unnecessary doubt upon the value of the species. 
Throughout the region from Labrador and N ewfoundland to northern 
Ontario and northern New England, where N. variegata grows in 
nearly every pond, dead-water or shallow pool, it very rarely attains 
the dimensions assigned it. Of the numerous Newfoundland speci- 
mens examined by us (some of them cited by Miller & Standley as 
coming from “ Canada") not one has the floating leaves (dried) more 
than 11 em. long, the Newfoundland series showing a variation in size 
from 6-11 em. long by 5-8.5 em. broad; and, although these measure- 
ments are from herbarium specimens, it is highly improbable, judging 
from the ordinary shrinkage of Nymphaea leaves under pressure, that 
the Newfoundland plant ever attained the dimensions assigned by 
the authors of N. americana. 
It is not, however, desirable to separate from N. variegata or 
americana this small-leaved Newfoundland material for it is clearly 
the reduced. northern state of a species which toward the southern 
edge of its range becomes much larger and there agrees with the pre- 
scribed measurements given for the species. Such small-leaved 
specimens are known not only from Newfoundland but are the charac- 
teristic form from the northern edge of the range, as, for instance, 
at Nouvelle, Quebec and at North Sydney, Cape Breton (specimen 
cited, through a clerical error, by Miller & Standley as the basis of 
the species in British Columbia). And of 43 collections of the plant 
seen by us from New England 21 have their largest leaves well under 
17 cm. in length. 
The name Nymphaea variegata. (Engelm.) G. S. Miller, for the 
1 Miller & Standley, l. c. 78. 
