89 



A SECOND ILLINOIS STATION FOR PHACELIA 

 COVILLEI WATSON 



By H. A. Gleason 



Mr. E. S. G. Titus, field assistant to the Illinois state ento- 

 mologist, has recently referred to me for determination a plant 

 which proves to be Phacclia Covillei Watson. In view of the 

 apparent rarity of the species, a note upon it may be of interest. 

 The original station for this plant was an island in the Potomac 

 River, where it was first collected by F. V. Coville. Although 

 lost sight of for some years, it has again been collected near the 

 place of its discovery. Dr. J. Schneck of Mt. Carmel, Illinois, 

 has reported * a second station in southern Illinois, where it 

 occurs in the bottom-lands of the Wabash River. 



The new station for it is at Fall Creek, a small town in western 

 Illinois near Quincy, and about two hundred miles from the first 

 Illinois station at Mt. Carmel. Here it grows along a railroad 

 track in the cleared bottom-lands of the Mississippi River, but 

 about four miles from the river itself. Mr. Titus is of the opinion 

 that the soil is liable to inundation, which, if correct, would cor- 

 respond with the observations of Dr. Schneck concerning its 

 habitat at Mt. Carmel. 



Dr. Schneck has spoken of the similarity of the plant to Macro- 

 calyx Nyctelea (L.) Kuntze, and has surmised that it is confused 

 with the Macrocalyx by other collectors. The resemblance to 

 the latter in the specimens from Fall Creek is striking, and they 

 were at first considered by Mr. Titus identical with the Macro- 

 calyx, which was growing near by. The plants of the Phacclia, 

 while somewhat smaller and less succulent, are distinguished by 

 the imbricated corolla-lobes, and the structure of the capsule. 



Phacclia Covillei was regarded by Dr. Schneck as an austrori- 

 parian plant, and the limited evidence at hand concerning its 

 habitat and distribution justifies this conclusion. The station at 

 Fall Creek, while distant from the characteristically austro- 

 riparian region about the valleys of the lower Wabash and the 

 lower Ohio, is still not entirely beyond the influence of austro- 



* Bot. Gaz. 27 : 395. 1899. 



