PHYrOGRAPHIC NOTES AND AMENDMENTS. 57 



matiou tliat they occur in other than wild land. Yet in these 

 flowering specimens I recognize at first glance one of the 

 common vetches of the Old World, i. e., Vicia Cracca. 



Erigeron confinis, Howell, Eryth. iii, 35, a fine species, 

 has, through my own forgetfulness, a synonym in E. Blas- 

 dalei, published in the same volume, at page 124. The 

 specimens obtained last year by Mr. Blasdale are of three 

 times the size of the Siskiyou specimens on which Mr. 

 Howell based the species; but there is a perfect agreement 

 between the two in all essential characters. The species is a 

 beautiful one, and probably rare; some four hundred and 

 fifty miles intervening between the two stations that are now 

 recorded for it. 



Ribes Howellii, as a name, may well replace the R. acer- 

 ifoliiim of Howell, Eryth. iii, 3L There is a much earlier 

 jR. acerifolium of C. Koch. 



Polygonum bicorne, Raf. Fl. Ludov. 29 (1817). P. longis- 

 tylum, Small, Bull. Torr. Club. xxi. 169 (1894), and Monogr. 

 62, t. 18 (1895). The prominent characteristics of this 

 excellent Persicaria are so striking^ that no botanist can well 

 be supposed to have overlooked them. The extremely long 

 forked style, with its branches upright and gradually diver- 

 gent, like a pair of horns (instead of being recurved or 

 deflexed as in nearly all closely allied species) were as clearly 

 emphasized by Rafinesque as by Mr. Small; and each author 

 allowed this remarkable pistil to suggest a specific name. It 

 seems to me that the botanist last named must have been 

 unaware of the fact that a number of these plants of the 

 lower Mississippi had been named and defined in the Flora 

 Ludoinciana. Nor are the descriptions in any case to be 

 complained of as too short. They are even rather more full 

 than the most eminent botanists in the early decades of this 

 century were in the habit of giving. Very likely Mr. Small 

 could tell us, after due examination of the text, with the 

 polygonums of tliat region before him for comparison, what 

 Rafinesque had in view as his P. maadaf urn, and P.pachyiim 

 of his work on southwestern botany. Certainly as to the 

 absolute identity of his P. longistylum and the earlier P. 



