A simple-leaved Baptisia from the coast prairies of 

 Louisiana, and a supposed hybrid 



Roland iM. Hakim.r 



One or more species of Baptisia are characteristic features 

 of the vegetation of the prairies of Long Island/ Arkansas,^ 

 Louisiana,' Oklahoma and Texas,'' and perhaps other states 

 west of the Mississippi River; but strange to say, none have 

 ever been reported from the prairies of Florida, Alabama and 

 Mississippi, though there are a few species in other habitats in 

 those states. 



In traveling through the coast prairies of Louisiana and 

 Texas at various times, mostly in summer, when these plants 

 were not in bloom, I have noted two or more species of Baptisia; 

 and I had a chance to see some of them at close range in eastern 

 Texas in 1918, and identified one as B. leucophaea Nutt., and 

 guessed another to be B. sphaerocarpa Nutt/ These were pre- 

 sumably the same two previously seen from the train in 

 Louisiana.^ 



On July 14, 1934, coming east on the Southern Pacific R.R. 

 through the coast prairies of Texas and Louisiana, I noticed 

 some of the same Baptisias again, at least three species. I 

 stopped off at Lafayette, La., a little east of the prairies, and 

 Miss Annie Frazier, who was teaching botany in the Southwest 

 Louisiana Institute there at the time, kindly took me by auto- 

 mobile back into the prairies the same afternoon, to get a 

 better look at the Baptisias and other plants. Near a crossing 

 about half way between Crowley and Rayne, in Acadia Parish, 

 which I had noted from the train a few hours before as a 

 good Baptisia locality, we stopped to reconnoiter, and soon 

 found what appeared to be three or four species. One was evi- 

 dently B. leucophaea, but the commonest form was a taller and 

 more bushy one with many or most of the leaves simple, and 

 pods in erect racemes. I had never before heard of a simple- 

 leaved Baptisia, except two southeastern species, B. perfoliata 

 and B. simplicifolia ; and although I was not equipped for col- 



1 Mem. Torrey Bot. Club 17: 269, 271, 274, 280, 281, 283. 1918. 



2 Plant World 17:42. 1914. 

 ^Torreya 20: 73. 1920. 



* Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 47: 312. 1920. 



121 



