350 BOTAXICAL GAZETTE [xovember 



that various colors of achenes may thus become fixed and heredi- 

 tary.' 1 Whether, however, the colors will remain fixed in the 

 achenes of all the plants of a locally generated race upon a recur- 

 rence of normal fertilization (with attendant lapse of apogamy) is 

 doubtful. Surely subsequent cross-pollination with specimens 

 from the antecedent stock might be expected to occur and to 

 result, at times, in a repetition of the former achene color. In 

 any case, the observable tendency of the achenes of T. eriophorum 

 to be more sharply tetragonal and of the bracts to be undilated 

 at the apex in a much higher percentage of specimens, makes it 

 seem that T. eriophorum is not a red-fruited variety of T. ccrato- 

 phorum, but is rather a distinct species. 



The Alaskan specimen by Walpole (no. 1980, Hb. U.S. 379098) 

 has slender elongate leaves, much as in the types of T. angusti- 

 folium, and its achenes are bright red. The involucral bracts, how- 

 ever, especially the inner ones, are exceedingly corniculate, much 

 as in the extremely corniculate forms of T. ccratophorum. 25 



4. Taraxacum vulgare (Lam.) Schrank, Primit. Fl. Salisburg. 

 193. 1792; Leontodon Taraxacum Linn., Sp. PI. 2:798. 1753 

 (diagnose incompl. fide Handel-Mazz.) ; Pollich, Hist, plant. 

 Palatin. 2:379. 1777; L. vulgare Lamarck, Fl. Francoise 2:113. 

 1778; T. officinale Weber, Prim. PI. Hoist. 56. 1780; Roth, Ten- 

 tam. Fl. Germ. 2 2 :i4j. 1793; T. Dens-leonis Desf., Fl. Atlant. 

 2:228. 1800 (fide Indicis Kew., locum cit. non vidi); T. latilobum 

 DC, Prodr. 7:146. 1838; T. mexicanum DC, loc. cit.; T. officinale 

 var. palustre Fernald and Robinson, Gray's Alan., ed. 7, p. 865. 

 1908 (forsan non [Smith] Blytt, Bentham, et al.); T. paradoxum 

 Somes, Amer. Botanist 15:27. 1909; L. latilobum Britton, Britt. 

 and Brown 111. Fl. N. Amer., ed. 2, 3:315,./^. 4063. 1913; T. minus 



24 "In der Natur findet man verschiedene Farben-Schattierungen an den 

 Taraxacitm-Fruchten, von dunkelbraun bis hellgriinlich: die ausgesprochenen Fiirb- 

 ungen in typischen Modificationen genommen (rein hellgrun und rein dunkelbraun) 

 werden als solche durch Vererbung fixirt." (L. Schkorbatow, loc. cit. For English 

 summary of Schkorbatow's work, see Chamberlain - , Bot. Gaz. 52:167. 1911.) 



*s To those who accept Handel-Mazzetti's differentiation of North .\merican 

 material between T. ccratophorum and T. lapponicum, this specimen will appear 

 correspondingly distinct from T. eriophorum. I have found no such intermediate 

 forms in T. eriophorum, respecting dilations of the bract tips, as are abundant in 

 T. ccratophorum. Nevertheless, there seems insufficient evidence at hand to warrant 

 proposing Walpolc's 1980 as the type of a new species. 



