Notes on the distribution of some Alabama plants 



Roland M. Harper 



From November, 1905, to July, 1906, I was doing botanical 

 field work for the Geological Survey of Alabama, and in the 

 course of my travels over the state, which took me into nearly 

 every county, I found many plants in unexpected places. Some 

 of those discussed below have not been reported from Alabama 

 before, but few are mentioned for that reason alone. The mere 

 fact of extending the known range of a species a short distance 

 across some political boundary or parallel of latitude, in a region 

 where botanists are as scarce as they are in Alabama, is not ordi- 



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narily of sufficient importance to justify publishing it, but if at the 

 same time some new light is thrown on the laws of distribution, 

 then the case may be different. Several of the following species 

 are here reported for the first time from natural regions which they 

 were not previously known to occupy, which will necessitate more 

 or less readjustment of existing theories of their distribution. 

 Some notes of this kind from the northern part of the state, 

 mentioning two species new to Alabama, were published in 

 Torreya for June, 1906. 





Anchistea virginica (L.) Presl {\Voodivardia J. E. Smith) 



Hitherto this has been known only in the glaciated region and 

 coastal plain of the Eastern United States,* but last spring I 

 found it in damp woods in the Coosa valley near Center, in 

 Cherokee County, and in the metamorphic (eastern) part of 

 Chilton County, a few miles from the same river. Although the 

 finer details of geological history in the southeastern states are 

 still very imperfectly known, there are several reasons for believ- 

 ing that much of the country adjacent to the Coosa River 

 throughout its length was submerged beneath the sea during the 

 Tertiary period, or later, and the vegetation of this area must 

 therefore be much newer than that of most of the Metamorphic 

 and Palaeozoic terranes. 



* See Rhodora 7 : 71. 1905 



5 2 :3 



