384 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 39 



of Laxilinocaulon anceps and RJiexia ciliosa, and its associates are as 

 notable a group of pine-barren and bog species as any in Virginia. 

 Among them are the two characteristic and highly localized species 

 of Utricularia: the tropical U, jiincea, with conspicuous yellow 

 flowers, and the very rare smaller-flowered imitation of it, U. vir- 

 gatida. Here is the northernmost known station for the remarkable 

 Oxypolis temata (pi. 5, fig. 1). Although originally described by 

 Nuttall as coming from "bushy margins of swamps, in the pine for- 

 ests of North and South Carolina," the plant is so very local that 

 in 1900 Coulter and Kose were able to cite specimens of it only from 

 Apalachicola ! There are perhaps 25 plants in the Greensville 

 County bog. Near them there occurs a colony, about 1 rod in diam- 

 eter, of the excessively rare Calamovilfa hrevipilis. 



Typical Calamovilfa hrevipilis is confined to the pine barrens of 

 New Jersey. In southeastern North Carolina there is a very rare 

 plant resembling the New Jersey series, but with characters of the 

 spikelet setting it apart as a distinct geographic variety. We know 

 it from only a single station. The plant of Greensville County, 

 occupying 1 square rod of bog, is an extreme departure in its flower- 

 ing parts from both the others. In their bases and vegetative char- 

 acters the three really distinct plants are inseparable, but the details 

 of their spikelets are so different as to mark three highly localized 

 varieties of one ancient type. 



As another member of this remarkable assemblage which has not 

 yet wholly gone under the plow I will mention Zigadenus angusti- 

 folius or Amianthium angusti folium. Occurring on the Coastal 

 Plain from eastern Louisiana to Florida, thence to southeastern Vir- 

 ginia, the plant has relict colonies on the ancient Appalachian core 

 of eastern North America. It is an ancient type still persisting. 

 Originally put into Helonias., the species has been placed at times in 

 AmiantUimi, at times in Zigadenus. It is atypical in any of them, 

 and Small constitutes of it a genus by itself, Tracyanthus. Whether 

 it belongs to a new or an old genus, the species is obviously old. So 

 far as we yet know there is a solitary small colony of it in Virginia. 



The bog where these plants still persisted in Virginia in October 

 1938 was discovered in the preceding July. In August it was intact ; 

 in September it had been invaded by hogs. In April 1939 a band 

 20 feet wide had been plowed at the upper margin, but in July it 

 was noticed that the newly plowed land had yielded no crop except 

 corn 8 or 10 inches high. For agricultural purposes the soggy, acid 

 land is absolutely useless, but the plowing has now been done. A 

 broad strip of Burmminia hiflora and its very rare associates is 

 ruined. Weedy types will now occupy the 20-foot belt where they 

 formerly grew. 



