8 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [OCT. 7, 



three pages of the actual citation). This mistake has been 

 copied by himself in the " New York Flora/' and by Dr. Watson, 

 in the " Bibliographical Index," where matters are still further 

 complicated by the erroneous reference of the plant to Michaux's 

 n'otmiclifolia, although this has been subsequently corrected by 

 Dr. Gray in Botanical Gazette, iv. 210. 



Besides the beautiful purple flower?, which unfold ten days 

 earlier than those of C. hulbosa, in the locality near Newfound- 

 land, New Jersey, first noted, I think, by Professor Joseph 

 Schrenk, where I have studied the living plants, the species 

 differ in the root-leaves of Douglassii being uniformly more 

 nearly orbicular and the stem-leaves broader and generally more 

 deeply dentate. The texture of the leaves is thicker, and the 

 whole plant lower than bulbosa. I have found no essential dif- 

 ference in the fruit. 



Cardamine flexuosa. With. Bot. Arr. Brit. Plants, Ed. 3, 



578 (1796). 

 <7. sylvatica, Link, in Hoffm. Phyt. Blat. i. 60 (1803). 

 C. Virginica, Michx. Fl. Bor.-Amer. ii. 29 (1803), not of 



Linnaeus. 

 <7. hirsuta, L. var. Vii'ginica, Torr. & Gray, Fl. N. A. i. 85 



(1838). 

 C. hirsuta, L. var. sylvatica, Gray, Man. Ed. 5, 67 (1867). 



I am indebted to Mr. Arthur Bennett, of Croydon, England, 

 than whom no one is better acquainted with the English flora 

 and its literature, for valuable notes respecting this widely dis- 

 tributed species; and I agree with him and with other British 

 botanists that it is distinct from C. hirsuta. So far as I have 

 observed, its habitat is on rocky banks in more or less shaded 

 woodlands ; that of C. hirsuta being either actually in the water 

 or in very moist situations. It appears to be a smaller ])lant 

 than C. hirsuta, with a decidedly flexuous stem, the leaves 

 smaller and with narrower divisions. That our plants have 

 always six stamens as against four in hirsuta, as stated in the 

 English floras, I have not yet been able to satisfy myself fully ; 

 but in those which I have had opportunity to examine this dis- 

 tinction appears to hold good. I have collected C. flexuosa 

 recently on the sides of Mount Mackay, near Port Arthur, north 

 shore of Lake Superior. 



POLYGALA VERTICILLATA, L. Var. AMBIGUA (Nutt.). 



P. amhigua, Nutt. Gen. ii. 89 (1818). 



1 have failed to separate this as a species, finding no charac- 

 ters which are at all constant, after studying a very extensive 

 series of specimens. 



