DuRING THE SUMMER OF IQOI 341 
PLANTAGO SPARSIFLORA Michx. 
Seen only in rather dry pine-barrens about two miles south of 
Smithville, Lee County, where I collected it on the morning of 
August 3 (no, 1163). This species has much the appearance of 
some Melanthaceous plant, for which I mistook it at first glance. 
It seems to be very rare. There are no specimens of it in the U. 
S. National Herbarium or that of the New York Botanical Garden 
besides my own, but in the former there are two specimens so 
labeled, one from Illinois and the other from Kansas, which are 
something entirely different. The label of one of them bears a 
note to a effect that the capsules are 5-seeded, and the other one 
is similarly noted to have 6-seeded capsules; while in P. sfarsi- 
flora they are 2-seeded. 
In the Columbia University Herbarium are two old and imper- 
fect but unmistakable specimens of P. sfarsifora, one from North 
Carolina and one from South Carolina, as well as a very doubtful 
specimen from Louisiana and one from Illinois similar to those in 
the National Herbarium. All these western specimens are annual, 
while P. sparsifiorais perennial froma stout rootstook. Just what 
the western plant represents is not clear. It may be a form of P. 
Virginica, or perhaps Michaux’s P. Kentuckensis, a species which 
seems never to have been recognized. JP. sparsifiora is credited to 
Illinois in Britton and Brown’s Illustrated Flora, doubtless on the 
basis of the specimens just mentioned, but it would be indeed re- 
markable if a species should occur both in Georgia and Illinois 
without being known from intermediate stations. The true P. 
sparsifiora is known only from the coastal plain of Georgia and 
the Carolinas, which is about the range given by the Michaux. 
My specimens, which were probably the first collected for many 
years, agree perfectly with the original description and most of the 
later ones. 
VIBURNUM NiTIDUM Ait. Hort. Kew. 1: 371. 1789 
V. nudum § angustifolium Torr. & Gray, Fl. N. Am. 2: 14. 
1841. 
Collected in the swamp of a small pine-barren stream, Bulloch 
County, June 8 (no. 831), in fruit. This species does not seem to 
have been recognized by most recent authors, but my attention 
