128 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



Hill's tind has always remained the only known occurrence 

 east of the Mississippi. 



In the 6th Edition of Gray's Manual, the station in Kan- 

 kakee county, Illinois, is added to the range of the western 

 plant, and Britton's Manual records practically the same dis- 

 tribution, but the 7th and latest edition of Gray reverses itself 

 and on the authority of Greene and Fernald make the Kanka- 

 kee plant a distinct species under the name of Spliaeralcea 

 reniota giving as its only station "a gravelly island in the 

 Kankakee R., HI." Fernald and Greene are well known to 

 be acute botanists, and if their assumptions are correct, our 

 plant at once becomes extremely rare. 



Since the locality for the plant is not so far distant from 

 my own residence, I have many times planned to visit the 

 place and see the plant in its native haunts. Last year the 

 attempt was made, but there are too many gravelly islands in 

 the Kankakee to make it easy to locate the right one, and we 

 came home empty-handed. There was plenty of the rose 

 mallow and the halberd leaved mallow but no sign of Sfhacr- 

 alcca. Some time later, mentioning the plant to Judge Arthur 

 W. DeSelm of Kankakee who was familiar with its haunts, 

 he very kindly gave more explicit directions for finding it. 

 and in August 1920, in company with two botanical enthu- 

 siasts, a second search for the plant was made and this time 

 crowned with success. 



The discovery, however, was not achieved without con- 

 siderable search. The gravelly island was located all right, 

 l)ut a pretty thorough exploration failed to bring to light a 

 single plant. At last, fully convinced that it must be a rare 

 plant, I was crossing a plowed area on the island, homeward 

 bound, when there on the edge of the field, so near to the last 

 furrow that some of its roots had been severed by the plow, 

 stood a single plant of the rare mallow. There was no mistaking 



