The Plant World 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF POPULAR BOTANY. 



Vol. h. FEBRUARY, 1899. No. 5. 



KALM'S ST. JOHN'S-WORT (HYPERICUM KALMIANUM) 



WEST OF- MICHIGAN. 

 By E. J. Hill. 



IN his interesting "Wisconsin Field Notes," in The Plant World 

 of December, Professor Edward L. Greene states that he is not 

 aware of any recorded occurrence of Hypericum Kabnianum to 

 the westward of Michigan. If our botanical handbooks read the 

 "Great Lakes*" instead of the "Northern Lakes" there would 

 clearly be room to place it at the south end of Lake Michigan, in 

 northern Indiana and the neighboring portion of Illinois, where it has 

 been known since i860, at least, and its presence several ^times re- 

 corded. It seems that Dr. I. A. Lapham, of Milwaukee, Wis., one of 

 the earliest local students of the flora of Wisconsin and the adjoining 

 States, did not know about its existence here, since he did not give it 

 in his Catalogue of Illinois Plants, published in the first volume of the 

 Reports of the Illinois Agricultural Society in 1856. This is the first 

 list of plants ostensibly covering the whole State, though there were 

 several earlier contributions to its flora, mainly the southern portion 

 in connection with that of Missouri and of Kentucky, by Beck, Short, 

 Geyer and Engelmann. In 1858-59 "supplements" were added to 

 Lapham's catalogue by Dr. Brendel, of Peoria, and Mr. Bebb, of 

 Fountaindale, but without this Hypericum. It finds a place, however, 

 in the third "supplement" made by Dr. Vasey, for the fourth volume 

 of the Reports (1859-60). Dr. Vasey was then a resident of the north- 

 eastern part of the State, diligently studying its flora while practicing 

 his profession about his home, either at Elgin or at Ringwood. The 

 additions recorded in this supplement were doubtless principally of 

 his own collecting. This portion of the State had not been as well 



*This is the reading in the Synoptical Flora of North America, for which the genus Hyper- 

 icum was prepared by Dr. Coulter, and in the "Revision of North American Hypericaceie " by 

 the same hand in the Botanical Gazette (1885). 



