u6 Muhlenbergia, Volume 5 



THE REAL ROSA WOODSII 



BY T. D. A. COCKERELL 



From time to time descriptions of imperfectly known plants 

 have been reproduced in Muhlenbergia, to the advantage of 

 western botanists not having access to the originals. I venture 

 now to ask space for the original description of Lindley's Rosa 

 Woodsii, a plant which has been much misunderstood by those 

 who have not paid attention to the characters assigned in the 

 first publication, in the Rosarum Monographia 21-22. 1820. 



"R. stipulis sepalisque conniventibns, foliolis oblongis ob- 

 tusis glabris. . A low shrub with upright, dull, dark branches, 

 having very numerous, straight, slender, scattered prickles, 

 with a few setae at their base, the former becoming stipulary 

 towards the extremities; brauchlets often unarmed. Leaves 

 without pubescence; stipules very narrow and acute, convolute 

 and fringed with glands; stalks armed with straight unequal 

 prickles; leaflets 7-9, shaped like those of R. rubella, shining, 

 flat, simply serrated, paler beneath. Flozcers pink, appearing in 

 the spring. Fruit naked, ovate, with short, connivent, entire 

 sepals which are free from glands as is the peduncle. . . In 

 character it approaches R. Carolina, particularly in the remark- 

 able convolution of stipulae. From this its numerous ramifica- 

 tions, weak prickles and short shining leaves sufficiently distin- 

 guish it. It moreover flowers in the spring and has naked fruit 

 with conniving sepals. . . Said to be a native of the coun- 

 try near the Missouri." 



In Rydberg's key in the Flora of Colorado, this would ap- 

 pear to niu to A'. Macounii; but thai plant, as described by 

 Greene, differs by its depressed-globose fruit, as well as other 

 characters. Dr. E. C. Schneider (Distribution of Woody Plants 

 in tin- Pike's Peak Region, 164. 1909), apparently following 

 Prof 3soi A. Nelson iii lilt., makes A'. Woodsii include A', acicu- 

 htju and A'. MaCOUflli. I believe that A', aeiciilata and Mac- 

 mini/ are forms of a single spe< ies, and so stated to Dr. Rydberg 

 some vears ago. He did not agree, and I could produce no act- 

 ual proof, and so tin- matter has rested. With regard to A'. 

 Woodsii, it seems necessary to find a plant really agreeing with 

 the origional description. Such a plant has not come under my 

 observation. (For notes on the discrepancies between thediffer- 

 ent descriptions, see Proc. Phila. Acad. 115. 1904.) 



