THE AMKRICAN BOTANIST 97 



botanist l)v avocation." For inc to retort that my accuser 

 is \ cr\- well known to he an authority on constitutional law. 

 and. ohvionslv. not a botanist hy avocation, would contrih- 

 nte nothini;^ to the point of the discussion. That point i> 

 whether or not there is a plant that may he correctly called 

 a hlue dandelion. 



Mr. I loar i> on record with positive statements that he 

 has found hlue dandelions in \ irs^nnia. Massachusetts and 

 Wisconsin. The editor of the .Itlantic Monthly who puh- 

 li>he(l the discoverer's account of the plant which, if veri- 

 fied hv reasonable authority, would electrify boL'inists the 

 world over, has stated in a letter to me that he knows a 

 dandelion wlien he sees one and that he ha> both seen and 

 handled llie blue dandelions in (|uestion. To which he adds 

 that he must either believe in them or dt)ubt the credence of 

 his own senses. 



With the va.i^^aries of variation in mind the etlitor ot 

 the Hotaiiist is willinj^ to infer that "once \v. a l)lue moon 

 there mav be a blue dandelion." I'.ven amateurs will agree 

 with Mr. Clute's pleasant way of expressinji^ a l)S(>logical 

 truism. lUu we have been asked to believe that l)lue vari- 

 eties of a species so j)rolitic and fast runninj.( as '/'urd.ViU iiiii 

 have existed in three widely separated localities without the 

 knowledj,''e of botanists, both amateur and professional. 



Mv cherished boUuiical a\()cation is confined to an ef- 

 fort to become ac(|uainted with the flowers of field and road- 

 side, the florrd wild folk fre<|uently miscalled weeds. The 

 bil)liogra[)hv of the subject is voluminous etiouj.,di to cause 

 despair to the collector. My own library is sadly incomplete 

 and vet it niunbers many works from first editions of old 

 herbals bv Gerarde. Parkinson. Turner and Fuchs to present 

 (lav treatises. Tliev cover a period of nearly 400 years dur- 

 intr which no blue dandelion has been recorded and the oc- 



