﻿24S Farwell: Michigan Species of Polygonatum 



two groups based upon pubescence of foliage or lack of it, size 

 of flowers, and form of filaments, the two groups corresponding 

 to the two species usually recognized. But it is next to impossible 

 to include under one species forms with yellow flowers and those 

 with green; forms that are constantly seven or eight feet in height 

 with those that never exceed one or two feet; forms that have 

 elongated very narrow leaves with those that have very short 

 and broad ones; forms with slender flexuous peduncles with those 

 having coarse, rigidly wiry ones. Differences in size alone are not 

 characters upon which to base new forms of plants but when 

 correlated with other constant diff"erences there is pretty good 

 evidence for their recognition. An effort to place these forms led 

 to an investigation of the publications of earlier botanists with some 

 surprising and unexpected results. 



It seems that neither Linnaeus, Miller, the elder Aiton, Murray, 

 nor any of their contemporaries had recognized any American 

 species of this group of plants nor even included American 

 plants in the European species with which they dealt. Walter 

 was the first to describe an American species, the ConvaUaria 

 hifiora, a glabrous plant with three-nerved leaves, which has since 

 had a rather varied career. Bosc came next, describing C hirta, 

 a species with hispid peduncles and stems, otherwise glabrous. 

 Michaux and Persoon referred the American species to the Euro- 

 pean C. midtiflora. Wildenow followed with two new species, 

 C. pubescens and C. canaliculata. Besides recognizing the above 

 species under Polygonatum, now considered distinct from Con- 

 mllaria, Pursh, suppressing Walter's specific name biflora and 

 substituting for it his own name angustifolium, admitted P. 

 latifolium, a European species, to a place in our flora. Poiret 

 came next with Convallaria parviflora. The two Schultes de- 

 scribed C. commutata and, in 1835, Dietrich added still another, 

 P. giganteum. Thus in the first half century after the first 

 American species had been described eight others were recognized 

 by the earlier students of the American flora, seven being con- 

 sidered endemic and the other two identical with European species. 

 It would thus seem that the botanists of a century ago had a more 

 accurate conception of the genus in America than those of the 

 present day. More than seventy years later Dr. Greene described 



