A PLANT WITHOUT A NAME. 

 By Willard N. Cliite. 



IN these days of species-making it is no ordinary circumstance that 

 permits a plant whose habitat in this country is well known, and 

 which grows in abundance, to remain long unnamed, but just 



this thing occurs in a plant of eastern North America. 



The plant has been found in various places in the Eastern States. 

 At the station in the Upper Susquehanna valley, from which my 

 plants came, it grows plentifully in door-yards, along roadsides and 

 in waste places. There is no doubt as to its genus, for it is undoubt- 

 edly a Brassica, but its specific name is still a matter for speculation 

 by even our best botanists, and this, not because of involved synonomy, 

 for, so far as known, the plant has none. 



Nevertheless the plant thrives well, sending up its simple stems a 

 foot or more high, surmounted by a raceme of medium-sized yellow 

 flowers. The leaves are ovate or obovate in outline, deeply cut- lobed 

 and the lobes variously and finely incised. 



The trouble in giving this plant a specific name is this: It is 

 quite apparent from its place of growth that the plant is not a native, 

 and in all probability has been given a name in its own country. But 

 what that country is, is the question that perplexes the botanists. It 

 is not known in Europe, from whence the majority of our introduced 

 plants come, nor are there at present, so far as known, any dried spec- 

 imens of this plant from other countries in our herbariums. The 

 question of its origin is still an open one. It is the opinion of the 

 botanists who have examined it that the plant is a native of some 

 remote part of eastern Asia, but from what part, it remains for some 

 persevering botanist to discover. The plant could scarcely have been 

 introduced for the beauty of its flowers, and its occurrence in stations 

 as widely separated as Georgia and New York leave a wide field for 

 speculation regarding its origin. 



The March number of the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 

 contains several articles that will be of use to the students of our flora, 

 Miss Anna Murray Vail's " Studies of the Leguminosse " embrace a 

 revision of the genus Dolicholus, formerly known as Rhynchosia. Dr. 

 Charles Mohr describes aniimber of rare or new plants from Alabama, 

 among them a new plum {Prunus Alabamcnsis) that is twenty to 

 thirty feet in height. Professor Nelson has a large lot of new plants 

 from Wyoraing, and Mr. K, M. Wiegand several froni Washington 

 State. 



