Botanical notes from Long Island 

 Rot Latham 



While collecting at Promised Land, Napeague, Long Island, 

 during May, 1929, I found Rhihcx fiastatulus Muhl. fairly com- 

 mon in one spot in a sandy, brackish meadow, growing in pure 

 beach sand. The species seems worthy of special note because 

 of its rarity on Long Island. In my collecting on the eastern 

 half of Long Island I have found it but once before, a small 

 colony northwest of the village of Riverhead near the Sound 

 shore, on sand dunes. The plants at Promised Land were large 

 and showy, of a reddish-purple color. 



A large colony of Lythrum linear L. was discovered near 

 Flanders, Long Island, N. Y., on August 6, 1933. The habitat 

 is the head or upper margin of an extensive salt meadow with 

 a quaking, mucky soil and fresh-water springs, the soil very 

 rich in decayed vegetable humus. The plants had an average 

 height of over two feet and well branched. On this date the 

 plants were about one-half in bloom. The color of flowers varied 

 from nearly white to purplish-white. Associated with this species 

 was found Lilaeopsis lineata (Michx.) Greene, which is one of 

 the rarest species in the higher flora of Long Island, and Fim- 

 bristylis castanea (Michx.) Vahl, which is uncommon on the salt 

 marshes of Long Island. 



I can find no previous record for either Long Island or New 

 York state of Lythrum linear. The Flanders colony is evidently 

 a new species for the flora of the state, and a northward exten- 

 sion of the range of this species, its northern limit known here- 

 tofore in New Jersey. 



Orient, Long Island, N. Y. 



95 



