Harper: Explorations in Georgia 1903 171 



Mesadenia difformis Small, Fl. S. E. States 130T. 1903. 



Type-locality : Walton County, Florida. (Collected by 

 Curtiss in 1885.) 



When I was assisting Dr. Small in preparing a key to Mesa- 

 denia for his Flora we could find no specimen of M, diversifolia, 

 and came very near omitting this species entirely as being too 

 little known. The original specimens, collected by Chapman, 

 must have been lost, as the material so labeled in the Torrey Her- 

 barium represents something very different, and inquiry at the 

 Gray Herbarium failed to reveal anything corresponding to the 

 original description. 



But within two weeks after the book was given to the public 

 I unexpectedly received a great deal of new light on the subject. 

 On August 4 I found specimens agreeing exactly with Chapman's 

 description (as far as it goes) in the muddy swamps of Spring 

 Creek at two different places : in Early County near Damascus 

 ifio. igi4) and in Miller County near Colquitt {no. /p//.) A 

 couple of months later I saw in the Biltmore Herbarium a good 

 specimen collected on the muddy banks of the Chipola River near 



Mar 



by C. L. Boyn- 



A 



One important character can now be added to the descriptions 

 of this species; viz., the involucral bracts have winged keels, as 

 in M. tiiberosa^ M. Floridana^ and M. sulcata, M, diversifolia dif- 

 fers from these three species, however, in having the stem merely 

 angled, not furrowed (just as Dr. Chapman indicated), as well as 

 in the lobed upper leaves and in habitat. 



M, difformis Small, based on a single immature specimen col- 

 lected in Walton Countv. Florida, bv A. H. Curtiss in 188^, now 



M, diversifolia 



relegated to synonymy. 



Mesadenia diver sifoli 

 ^ from Earlv and Mill 



Jackson and Walt 



or partly in the Lower Oligocene or lime-sink region. It is also 

 to be expected in the intervening counties of Decatur in Georgia 

 and Houston in Alabama. 



Cokle(;k Toint, Nkw York. 



