THE PLANT WORLD 89 



there are mamj specimens of EUiottia from Waynesboro in the herbar- 

 ium of Dr. T. P. Clevehmd, who collected around Augusta and in other 

 parts of Georgia before the civil war. But I am not aware that any 

 search has recently been made for the plant near Waynesboro, or at the 

 other locality mentioned by Elliott, namely, near the Oconee River. 



Two figures of Elliottia have been published ; one in Garden and 

 Forest for May 23, 1894, and the other in Miss Alice Lounsberry's 

 Soiifheni Wild Flowers and Trees^ published in September, 190L Each 

 figure is accompanied by some descriptive matter, stating some of the 

 facts M'hich I have already mentioned. 



Some of the older specimens referred to by Dr, Small are in the her- 

 barium of Columbia University. The only specimen in the United 

 States National Herbarium, besides mine, was distributed through the 

 Biltmore Herbarium, and came from a plant on the grounds of Mr. 

 Berckmans, said to have been transplanted from its native habitat about 

 1878, Miss Lounberry's figure was doubtless drawn from a similar 

 si^ecimen, 



Elliottia seems to have been first placed in Ericaceae by De Can- 

 dolle in his Prodromus (72: 590) in 1839, and this disposition of it has 

 been followed by most authors. In Engler and Prantl's Natiirlichen 

 Pflanzenfamilien it is the first genus in the famih', in the tribe Bliodo- 

 dendroideae-Ledeae, Its nearest relative among North American genera 

 seems to be Bejaria racemosa, which also inhabits the southeastern 

 United States. 



Two Asiatic species are by some authors considered congeneric with 

 EUiottia racemom, and by others placed in a separate genus, Tripetaleia. 

 The latter view is the one taken by Engler and Prantl, 



Now as to my own experience with Elliottiti. On the afternoon of 

 -June 27, 1901, I went out to collect specimens on some sand hills in the 

 vicinity of the house where I was stopping, near Bloys, Bulloch County, 

 Georgia, accompanied by my friend Prof, J. W. Hendricks (whose guest 

 I was at the time), who has always taken a great interest in my botani- 

 cal work- While I was stopping to collect some other plants. Prof. Hen- 

 dricks went ahead on his bicycle through the open pine woods, and in 

 a few minutes returned with a flowering branch of Elliottia to ask me 

 what it was. I did not know it at that time, but went ahead with him 

 to see for myself. After collecting as many specimens as I wanted, and 

 about a dozen other species, I returned to the house, and on looking it 

 up in Chapman's Flora, I soon saw what a prize I had. My uncertainty 

 as to its specific identitj^ when writing to Dr. Small about it a few days 

 later, was due to the fact that Chapman's description (like most others) 

 says nothing about the size of the flowers, and I had imagined them to 

 be much smaller, like those of the Cyrillaceae, in which family Dr. Chair- 

 man placed it. At the time the specimens were secured I was not pre- 

 pared to photograph the plants, but two days later I revisited 



