1920] SARGENT, NOTES ON NORTH AMERICAN TREES. VH 119 



calyx and corolla) were described as tinged with flesh color or deep purple 

 and the leaflets as commonly downy below. This description was probably 

 based on specimens of Aesculus discolor of Pursh, for Gray had no specimen 

 of a red-flowered Aesculus octandra in his herbarium. The confusion about 

 a red-flowered Appalachian Buckeye was increased in the second volume of 

 the Silva of North America in which I proposed the name Aesculus octandra 

 var. hybrida for a tree said to be not rare on the Appalachian Mountains. 

 The description, however, was that of Aesculus discolor, and Aesculus 

 hybrida DC; a hybrid between Aesculus octandra and A. Pavia which 

 appeared in Europe more than a century ago, was thought to be the Ap- 

 palachian tree. WTio started the story that a red-flowered Buckeye grew 

 on the Mountains of Virginia, I do not know. For many years I have been 

 looking for it in the field and in herbaria. I thought I had found it at 

 Mount Vernon among the trees which Washington planted about 1785 and 

 which were believed to have been raised from seeds which he had gathered 

 near the mouth of Cheate River, West Virginia. I am now satisfied that 

 these trees are hybrids between Aesculus Pavia or Aesculus discolor and 

 some species with petals ciliate on the margins. They could not have come 

 from seeds gathered in West Virginia. Aesculus discolor and A, Pavia do 

 not, so far as I know, grow in West Virginia and A. octandra does not grow 

 in any part of the country near Aesculus Pavia or A. discolor. Aesculus 

 discolor does, however, grow with or near Aesculus gcorgiana in northern 

 Georgia and it is possible that the elder Michaux or John Bartram whom 

 Washington consulted about his trees may have given him nuts brought 

 from South Carolina or Georgia w^hich produced the Mount Vernon trees* 

 This theory is possible, but hardly probable; and the Mount Vernon Buck- 

 eyes present a problem which I am unable to solve. That they are hybrids 

 the mixture of hairs and glands on the margin of the petals seems to show. 

 That the story, whoever may have started it, of a red-flowered form of 

 Aesculus octandra on the mountains of West Virginia is true is now shown 

 by specimens in this herbarium collected on May 17, 1919, in the neighbor- 

 hood of White Sulphur Springs, Greenbriar County, by Mr. John S. Ames^ 

 who went specially to West Virginia to look for this tree. He was fortunate 

 in finding several trees with red flowers and others with pink and cream- 

 colored flowers growing with the typical yellow-flowered trees. This red- 

 flowered form of Aesculus octandra is without a name, for the var. purpur- 

 ascens Gray is Aesculus discolor Pursh by description and synonomy and 

 the var. hybrida Sarg. is a confusion of the hybrid Aesculus hybrida DC* 

 and Aesculus discolor Pursh, and I suggest that it be called 



Aesculus octandra var. virginica, n. var. 



Differing from the type only in the red, pink or cream-colored flowers. 



Aesculus georgiana Sarg. The type of this species was found in the 



neighborhood of Stone Mountain, DeKalb County, Georgia, where it is 

 common as a broad shrub from 1-2 m. high. The flowers which are pro- 

 duced in short, compact clusters, have a red and yellow caljoc and red pet- 



