The Wayland Group 61 



The question now arose what to call the group. 

 Mr. Munson had referred the varieties to Prunus 

 rivularis. Was he correct in this? And was P. 

 rivularis an acceptable name from the botanical stand- 

 point? These questions were examined in detail, and 

 my conclusions published at that time (1897).* Since 

 then I have given the group much more extensive 

 study, have monographed the horticultural varieties t 

 (aside from re-monographing them for the present 

 work), and have examined practically all the herba- 

 rium specimens in America which could throw light 

 on the question, including duplicate types of Scheele's 

 Prunus rivularis. Concerning the relationship of the 

 Wayland group to Scheele's species name, the case, as 

 it now stands in my mind, is as follows. 



Scheele described his Prunus rivularis in 1848$ 

 from specimens collected in Texas by Lindheimer in 

 1846. The name was first used in this country by 

 Coulter in 1891 in his Botany of Western Texas. It 

 was here, I take it, that Munson noted the name and 

 description. The distribution assigned to P. rivularis 

 by Coulter was as follows: "Not uncommon on the 

 Colorado and its tributaries and extending to the upper 

 Guadalupe and the Leona." 



It seems a trifle odd, even at first sight, that an 

 important species could exist in a comparatively ac- 

 cessible country like western Texas, and there be yet 

 so few specimens of it in our large herbaria. In the 

 second place, if we refer Wayland and Golden Beauty 

 to this species name, we must add Kanawha, Leptune, 

 Reed, and several others. These plums, however, 



Garden and Forest, 10:350. 1897. 



tVermont Experiment Station Report, 11:281. 1898. 



JLinnaea 21:594. 1848. 



fUnited States Nat. Herb. Cont. 2:102. 1891. 



