244 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



explain the condition, until after examining the scape, which I 

 found to be leafy, especially at the top, and the upper leaves took 

 on the shape and color of sepals and petals. I can not believe 

 that this was a deformity, the result of an injury, as there were 

 several plants in the same bed in the same condition. I would 

 like to ask, is the conversion of leaves into petal-like organs a 

 common method by which flowers are doubled? — J. Schneck, 

 Mt. Carmel, III. 



GENERAL NOTES. 



Hibiscus Moscheutos and H. roseus.— Dr. J. Guillaud, of Bordeaux, sends 

 a pamphlet containing his investigations resulting in the indentification of Hi- 

 biscus roseus of Thore, — a species supposed to be indigenous to the southeastern 

 coast of France, also found in Italy, — with our marsh Hibiscus. He is not 

 aware that the same identification has been made by Mr. Daydon Jackson, and 

 published a year or two ago in the 19th volume of the Journal of the IAnncean 

 Society, London. Dr. Guillaud has had the advantage of seeing the two plants 

 growing spontaneously, ours in the neighborhood of New York, the other in the 

 marshes of the Landes. H. roseus has also been found in Northern Italy, in the 

 marshes of the Po and lagunes of the Adriatic ; and, according to Dr. Guil- 

 laud, specimens have been received from Asia Minor, but no mention is made 

 of it in Boissier's Flora Orientalis. Is this species indigenous to Europe as 

 well as to the Atlantic coast of North America? Is it a survival from the 

 time when the floras of Europe and of Eastern America had more common 

 elements than they now have? Or has it somehow been conveyed across the 

 Atlantic; and if so, whether at some early period or within historic times? 

 Questions not easily answered. If the first, then this plant, like a few others 

 that might be named, is in Europe what Convallaria majalis, Littorella lacustris, 

 Marsilea quadrifolia, Scolopendmum, and perhaps Calluna, are in North America. 

 In favor of the second view, and even of a late and casual introduction, it is to 

 be said (as Dr. Guillaud notes) that Thore found the plant on the coast of France 

 only at the beginning of this century ; that it was unknown to Tournefort, who 

 botanized around Bayonne in the autumn of 1688 ; that the plant has disap- 

 peared from the particular station where Thore found it and where it was said 

 to abound ; and that it is now more rare than formerly. Its spread from the 

 Atlantic coast to that of the Adriatic, may be owing to the carriage of seeds by 

 marsh-birds. Indeed, Dr. Guillaud thinks it may have been brought to Europe 

 by sea-birds. On the other hand, since it is now found in the district near 

 Mantua, he quotes the lines in Virgil's Eclogues in which the stems of Hibiscus 

 are twice mentioned, in a way by no means mal d propos ; but he thinks they 

 might as well apply to Marsh-mallow. 



It appears that the specific name Moscheutos came to Linnaais through Cor- 

 nuti from a " Rosa Moscheutos " of Pliny, some kind of Rose-mallow, we may 

 suppose. Since the two Linnsean species are clearly one, it is a pity that the 



