163 



scribed. Jepson in his "Manual of the Flowering Plants of Cali- 

 fornia," pages 1097 and 1098 (1925), states that it occurs along 

 waysides and in vacant lots of towns and villages, valleys and low 

 hills in California, common in the Coast Ranges and coastal southern 

 California, less common in the Sierra Nevada foothills, "doubtless 

 naturalized from Chile." He records var. congesta (Nutt. ) T. & G. 

 from waste places and fields in western California and Oregon. 



Recently E. J. Alexander in his "Southern plant notes"^ has 

 reported finding this plant near Rainbow Springs, Macon County, 

 North Carolina, on August 19, 1939. He adds "Obviously intro- 

 duced. The plant has not been reported before from the eastern 

 states." 



In the Britton Herbarium at the New York Botanical Garden 

 there is a specimen of Madia sativa subsp. capitata (Nutt.) Piper 

 [var. congesta of Jepson] collected by R. M. Harper in a weedy 

 place in back of the chemistry building. University campus, Tusca- 

 loosa, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama {R. M. Harper 3687). Dr. 

 Harper has appended these interesting notes to the label "This 

 has appeared here (and also at Macon, Bibb County, Georgia, and 

 at Tallahassee, Leon County, Florida) in several recent years, but 

 only a few specimens have been seen in any one year, and those 

 usually on lawns, where their existence is rather precarious." 



On July 14, 1940, Joseph Monachino found M. sativa subsp. 

 capitata "fairly well represented and seemingly happy in a weedy 

 habitat by a roadside" in the World's Fair region. Queens County, 

 New York {H. N. Moldenke 11585). Specimens to back this 

 record are deposited in the Britton Herbarium and the herbarium 

 of the Botaniska Tradgard at Goteborg. 



On June 22, 1941, Miss Alma Ericson and the present writer 

 found subsp. capitata along the dirt shoulder of the highway about 

 one mile north of Amityville, Suffolk County, New York {H. N. 

 Moldenke 11566). The plants seemed quite well established and 

 occurred regularly at the far edge of the shoulders (where they were 

 not mowed down) for a distance of a mile or more. They were quite 

 conspicuous, even from a fast-moving car, with a stout simple stem, 

 1^ to 2^/2 feet tall, and numerous capitate-congested heads of yellow 

 flowers appressed close to the stem. The stems and herbage are 



iCastanea5:92. 1940. 



