TAXONOMY NVMPHAEA FLAVO-X'IRENS. 



139 



quarter of tuber clothed with long light brown hairs, above which the stout soft leaf- 

 rudiments may project visibly even in the dried state. Phyllotaxy of a high order, but 

 the leaf scars are 1.2 to 1.9 cm. apart, and by their dry projecting habit give the 

 tuber somewhat the appearance of a rough pine-cone. 



MEASUREMENTS OF LEAVES FROM SMALL TUBER, IN CENTIMETERS. 



GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION. Uncertain. 



NOTES. This species has been known for ten years in American gardens as 

 N. gracilis. An examination of Zuccarini's types shows this name to be mistaken, 

 while the plants agree well with the types of N. fiavo-virens both of Lehmann and 

 Hooker. Concerning its original home there is some doubt. Lehmann's type in hb. 

 Kew is marked " Hort. Bot. Hamburg 1864, ex hb. Reichenbach fil." The plant figured 

 in the Botanical Magazine was grown at Kew from stock received in 1892 from W. N. 

 Pike, Floral Park, N. Y., under the name of N. mexicana. The present stock in Amer- 

 ican gardens was collected by Mr. C. G. Pringle and introduced by Mr. E. D. Sturte- 

 vant, then of Bordentown, N. J., previous to 1894 (G. & F. 18946). Of Mr. Pringle's 

 Plantae Mexicanae, No. 3891 is labeled "Nymphaea gracilis Zucc.," and agrees well 

 with the types. Concerning the herbarium specimens and the living plants, how- 

 ever, Mr. Pringle writes as follows under date of September 18, 1904 (received while 

 the present chapter was in press) : " No. 3891 of my Plantae Mexicanae was collected 

 in an artificial pond near the station of El Castillo some fifteen miles east of Guadala- 

 jara ; and from the same station I gathered, at the end of the season, when they were 

 lying dry on the surface of the soil and resembling pine cones (the water of the pond 

 had then been drawn off) the tubers which I suppose were supplied to Dr. Sturtevant 

 through my associate, Mr. F. H. Horsford, of Charlotte, Vermont. I am sure of these 

 facts." In G. & F. 3:415 (1890) Mr. Pringle writes: "Nymphaea gracilis I only 

 know in the region drained by the Lerma, yet this is a wide region, extending from 

 Aguas Calientes and San Luis Potosi on the north to near the City of Mexico on the 

 east and south and to beyond Guadalajara on the west." Is N. ftavo-vircns Lelim. 

 merely a cultivated form of N. gracilis Zucc. (=N. ampla DC.) ? 



This is a robust species, and very resistant in the resting state. It hybridizes very 

 readily with pollen of N. zanzibariensis, from which cross beautiful garden varieties 

 have arisen and been named in several places, e. g. N. Astraea, N. Greyae, N. mauvii, 

 N. Wm. Stone, N. Mrs. C. W. Ward, N. gracilis azurca, N. g. purpurea, N. g. rosea 

 perfecta, N. g. rubra. 



