RARE NATIVE PLANTS FERNALD 385 



The persistence of Zigadenus angustifolius at spots on the ancient 

 Appalachian Upland suggests many other plants of similar Coastal 

 Plain and upland or montane occurrence. Pamassia asarifoJia^ pri- 

 marily a species of bogs along the mountains of western Virginia 

 and the Carolinas, occurs in at least one springy bog in Tidewater 

 Virginia. Within a few rods of it there is a fine colony of Helonias 

 hullata, a montane plant of western Virginia and North Carolina, a 

 local Coastal Plain plant from eastern Virginia to Long Island. 

 Among their companions, in this case in eastern Henrico County, 

 are J uncus caesariensis, which, until Grimes got it near Williamsburg, 

 was looked upon as an endemic of southern New Jersey, and typical 

 Solidago ElUottii which, according to Mackenzie (in Small's Manual) 

 has been known only from Parris Island in southeastern South Caro- 

 lina. Not far away, in Whiteoak Swamp, Styrax americana reaches 

 its northern limit and the little-known Thalictrum macrostylum 

 abounds. Carex Collinsii^ always an interesting plant, is in the thicket 

 near Helonias; and Xyris platylepis^ a beautiful southern species 

 with large castaneous bulbs, abounds. These are only a few of the 

 specialties of these springy and boggy slopes. Most happily, they 

 are along the right-of-way of a great railroad and are unlikely to 

 be invaded by hogs, cattle, and plows. 



In Sussex County, Va., there is an extensive area most difficult to 

 define. In June it is a soaking-wet quagmire which has some traits 

 of a sphagnous bog, others suggesting a savanna, but with more or 

 less open pine woods. In August it is a sun-baked and exsiccated 

 argillaceous woodland ; in October we called it a damp pineland. The 

 flora is as difficult to classify. In June it is a solid swale of Juncus 

 ElUottii (Coastal Plain from Texas to Florida, thence north to eastern 

 Virginia, with a local station in Delaware and a single one in Coffee 

 County, Tenn.), mingled with Carex Ban^attii (Connecticut to Mary- 

 land; isolated in southeastern Virginia and in southern North Caro- 

 lina, with rare upland stations in Tennessee and Alabama), Carex 

 Buxhaumii (northern Eurasia; Greenland to British Columbia, 

 south, very rarely to Delaware and the District of Columbia and at 

 one station in North Carolina). Those are the significant plants in 

 mid-June. In August one specialty prevails, Manisuris rugosa^ the 

 northernmost member of a tropical genus. Returning in October 

 one will find the wet pineland covered with a very unusual closed 

 gentian with linear-lanceolate leaves and azure-blue flowers striped 

 with a darker blue. Unlike anything heretofore recognized in Vir- 

 ginia, it proves to be a close match for an isotype of the "Cherokee 

 gentian," Geoitiana cherokeensis (pi. 5, fig. 2), described in 1935 from 

 the mountains of northwestern Georgia, the name given to the species, 

 to use its author's words, "because apparently restricted to tlie terri- 



