THE OCCUEREXCE OF A WHITE FORM OF TRA- 

 DESCANTIA VIRGIXICA IX SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 



Clarence Bonnell^ Harrisburg Township High School 



For a number of years, students in the Harrisburg 

 Township High School have studied Tradescantia Virgin- 

 ica as a type, also, on account of the interesting opportu- 

 nity it affords of seeing circulating protoplasm within the 

 cell. On several occasions, such students have told me 

 that they had seen white specimens of the flower, but none 

 were ever brought to my attention. During more than 

 twelve years of rather careful study of the spring flora of 

 Saline county, I had never come across such a specimen as 

 had been described. 



In April, 1917, Leonard Atkinson, a student in the 

 school, found in a recently cleared field about two miles 

 north of Harrisburg, Illinois, a group of Tradescantia 

 with snow white flowers. He secured a herbarium speci- 

 men, brought another to the class room, and transferred 

 another to his home yard. This transplanted specimen 

 grew and bloomed again, and in profusion in the spring of 

 1918. It is, at present, growing and has spread sufficiently 

 to be divided for further propagation and study. 



A visit to the field where the first specimens were found 

 in 1917, made a year later was disappointing, for the field 

 had been plowed close up to the stump and no Tradescantia 

 of any kind were to be found. 



While I have not had access to authorities that mention 

 white flowers in Tradescantia, I am informed that some 

 authors do mention this feature using the expression, 

 "rarely white." This matter has been of interest to us as 

 an illustration of a very distinct variation from the type, 

 whether it is to be called a distinct species, a mutation, or 

 a more or less frequently recurring variation. 



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