CUKI.ONK nr,Ar,RA,- -TURTJ.K HEAD. 1 87 



parted ; and the corolla, though of but one petal, is also usually 

 five-lobed. This shows that the normal structure .of the flower 

 is pentamerous, or formed on a plan of five, and that it is only 

 by a union or suppression of parts that we have the forms we 

 see. Even when we come to study the species as well as the 

 genus, the relation of one form to the other is found so close as 

 to make the line of distinction very uncertain. In the earlier 

 times Linnaeus described two species. One, our present Chelonc 

 glabra, is thus described by Willdenow, "leaves lanceolate, ser- 

 rate, petiolate ; the upper ones opposite." The other C obliqiia 

 is said to have "leaves lanceolate, serrate, petiolate opposite." 

 It is not surprising, therefore, that succeeding botanists w^ere in 

 doubt about them. Professor Wood does not refer to C. obliqiia 

 even as a synonym, as Dr. Chapman in his Southern Flora, and 

 Dr. Gray in his Manual of 1867, do, — but the latter in his 

 "Synopsis" of 1878, again carries it back to its Linnsean position 

 as a distinct species, giving a character not mentioned by Will- 

 denow, that in C. obliqua the bracts are " ciliolate," while in our 

 species he says they are " not ciliate," meaning perhaps " cilio- 

 late," or having a few short or scattered bristles along the mar- 

 gins of the bracts, which are probably variable after all. Lindley 

 and Moore's Treasury of Botany says, "The so-called C. glabra 

 is now regarded as but one of the forms of C. obliqiia','' but if 

 one name has to be dropped, it should be the latter in accord- 

 ance with the practice of American botanists. A. L. de Jussieu, 

 a distinguished French author of the end of the last century, and 

 one of the fathers of modern Botany, tells us C glabra was the 

 earliest name, and that the character of the whole genus was 

 drawn from this species. That the species has " many forms " 

 American botanists know. Mr. Coleman finds one in the South- 

 ern Peninsula of Michigan with leaves only between a quarter to 

 half an inch wide, which he calls variety " linifolia." The flowers 

 are also variable in color. It is often pure white, and again it is 

 frequently found of the rosy tint we have given in our plate, 

 which is from a Pennsylvania specimen. 



