460 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB 
Eichhornia azurea) in a paper published eleven years after his first 
report. In this paper the first-mentioned species is positively 
identified as Eichhornia crassipes [= Piaropus crassipes (Mart.) 
Britton], the water-hyacinth, which has so conspicuously exhibited 
the same habit of rapid vegetative propagation in the St. John 
River in Florida, and Müller reports that during 1881-2 һе found 
long-styled plants of this species, hitherto known only in the mid- 
styled form. These long-styled plants he thought could have 
appeared in the Blumenau region only as the illegitimate offspring 
of mid-styled parents. | 
In the English edition of Hermann Miiller’s classic handbook 
on flower pollination} published in the same year as this last paper, 
Pontederia (Eichornia) crassipes [sic] is described as existing in the 
colony of Blumenau “іп long-, mid-, and short-styled individuals.” 
This statement is doubtless an error on the part of the translator 
and editor, for it would seem improbable that Hermann Müller 
should have had such information from his brother Fritz at that 
time. This error appears to be transferred to the other species 
in the Engler-Prantl treatment of the Pontederiaceae, for therei 
it is stated that Eichhornia azurea has trimorphic flowers, while of 
E. crassipes only a long- and a mid-styled form is known. Our 
view of the misapplied character of these last two reports finds 
confirmation in the carefully edited handbook on flower pollination 
by Knuth$, where no later original work on these species is indi- 
cated than Fritz Müller's second paper, and where any such almost 
certainly would have been mentioned if it had been published. 
Further examination of the water-hyacinths would be of con- 
siderable interest. 
* Müller, F. Einige Eigenthümlichkeiten der Eichhornia crassipes. Kosmos 
13: 297-300. 188 | 
Müller, Н. The fertilisation of flowers through insects, 561. 1883. (Trans- 
lated by D'Arcy W. Thompson.) 
+ Schónland, S. Pontederiaceae. Engler & Prantl, Nat. Pflanzenfam. 2*: 73. 
1888. 
4 Knuth, Paul. Handbuch der Blütenbiologie. 3?: 113, 114. 1904. It is per- 
haps worth while to call attention to the fact that the English translation of this 
the third German volume pica mous) devoted to extra-European plants, and 
therefore most useful for American psn contains several references to American 
literature which nearly escaped the attention of the present writer, owing to the 
failure of the translator and editor to ce the abridged character of the English 
dition. 5 
