Mar., 1911.] An Ohio Station for Phacelia dubia. 303 



AN OHIO STATION FOR PHACELIA DUBIA. 



Robert F. Griggs. 



Phacelia dubia (L) Small has been included in the Flora of 

 Ohio since Newberry's Catalog which reported it on the authority 

 of Sullivant. No other collector, however, has since found it and 

 the state herbariimi has long maintained an empty cover for it. 

 The writer was therefore glad to discover it growing on the ridge 

 a mile west of Clark's Crossing in Fairfield County and later to 

 find SulHvant's specimen in the Gray Herbarium at Harvard 

 labeled simply "Lancaster, Ohio, SulHvant" in Asa Gray's 

 handwriting. 



The station is a narrow ridge of Black Hand Sandstone from 

 which all of the overlying rock of the Logan formation has been 

 removed leaving it bare or clothed with a thin soil. It bears a 

 growth of fair sized trees mostly pine and rock or black oak and 

 mmierous rather xerophytic herbs of which the most typical is 

 the "Wild Sweet Pea," Tephrosia virginiana. In view of this 

 habitat the manual notation "Shaded Banks" is rather misleading. 

 Similar habitats are to be found occasionally throughout the 

 Sugar Grove region but the writer has seen the plant nowhere else 

 except at "Kettle Hills," a mile or two north of the present 

 station. Sullivant probably obtained his plant from one of these 

 stations, and since no one else has found it, it may be doubted if 

 it occurs elsewhere in the state. 



This supposition is supported by the general range of the 

 species for it seems to be confined to the Allegheny region from 

 New York and Ohio southward, although it is given in the manuals 

 as "New York to Kansas and southward." Through the whole 

 of this range it is rare and local being known from only a few 

 stations in each state. In New York it is known only near James- 

 ville where it was discovered a few years ago by Mrs. L. L. Good- 

 rich growing on limestone rock. In Pennsylvania it is reported 

 by Porter from Lancaster and Perry Counties. In Maryland 

 specimens from the Great Falls of the Potomac are marked 

 "rare." In Tennessee Gattinger knew it only from the vicinity 

 of Nashville and in Alabama Mohr cites only two counties with 

 the notation "Local and infrequent." 



The record from Kansas is based on a specimen collected by 

 Hitchcock in Cherokee County in the extreme southeastern comer 

 of the state. This is, however, not Phacelia dubia but Phacelia 

 hirsuta Nutt. and corresponds almost exactly with Nuttall's plant 

 which came from Arkansas. The writer has, however, made a 

 careful study of the plants and the descriptions and has satisfied 

 himself that the two are not specifically separable but that hirsuta 

 is simply a more hairy subspecies. It occurs with the species 



