Vol. 45 T O R R E Y A September 1945 



Monarda fistulosa L. and Its Two White-Flowered Forms 



Earl Edward Sherff 



Monarda fistulosa typica var. nov. ; M. fistulosa L. Sp. PI. 1 :22. 1753, 

 sens it strict o. 



Monarda fistulosa var. mollis f. albiflora (Farw.) comb, nov.; 31. 

 mollis f. albiflora Farw. Papers Mich. Acad. Sc. Arts & Letters 3: 103, 1923. 



"Gray's Xew Manual of Botany" (7th ed. 704. 1908) retained M. fistulosa 

 L. and 31. mollis L. as separate species, but both before and since the publica- 

 tion of that work, various careful workers have chosen to treat mollis as a 

 mere variety of 31. fistulosa* Recently, Fernald. the surviving, junior editor 

 of "Gray's Manual" (7th edition), has reviewed the taxonomy of M. fistulosa 

 and has accepted varietal rank for the mollis group. He seems to have omitted j 

 all notice of the interesting white-flowered forms that both M. fistulosa var. 

 tvpica and M. fistulosa var. mollis have been reported by Farwell to produce. 

 Besides the f. albiflora mentioned above, Farwell described (Amer. Midi. Nat. 

 8: 276. 1923) a forma albescens for 31. fistulosa. For greater precision, this 

 forma may be known as 31. fistulosa var. typica f . albescens Farw. 



Farwell cited his own no. 6650 for f. albescens, collected at Metamora, 

 southeastern Michigan. Jul}- 18, 1923. The present writer found, and repeat- 

 edly observed over a period of several weeks, a small patch of typical f. 

 albescens in the summer and early autumn of 1944. It was growing just south 

 of Hastings, Michigan, on a shaded embankment along the South Broadway 

 Road. This locality is somewhat more than 100 miles west-southwest of the 

 tvpe locality. Flowering heads were numerous and all florets were a pure white, 

 with no transitions to the lavender or other shades of blue found customarily 

 in var. typica. Moreover, a careful subsequent study of preserved material | 

 (now deposited in herb. Chicago Nat. Hist. Mus. etc. ) showed beyond all doubt 

 that it was to be construed as belonging under 31. fistulosa (var. typica) and 

 not under the allied, normally white-flowered 31. clinopodia L. 



Chicago Teachers College 

 Chicago, Illinois 



* Indeed, AlcClintock and Epling (Univ. Calif. Pubis. Bot. 20: 16o. 1942), even equate 

 the two, although this seems to me unwarranted. 



