142 



States" (1860), but in the supplement to the second edition 

 (1883) it is said to occur at the base of Lookout Mountain, 

 Tennessee, and northward. Gattinger, in his "Flora of Tennes- 

 see" (1901), gives its distribution as "O.S.," meaning over the 

 state ; but that is doubtless an exaggeration. 



In Britton and Brown's "Illustrated Flora"(1896)and Small's 

 "Flora of the Southeastern United States" (1903), the range of 

 Erigenia is said to extend southward to Alabama; but no Ala- 

 bama stations are mentioned in Coulter and Rose's "Monograph 

 of North American Umbelliferae" (1900), or in Mohr's "Plant 

 Life of Alabama"(1901). Dr. Small informs me that his Alabama 

 record is based on a specimen in the Torrey Herbarium labeled 

 as follows: — "Yale of Ovoca, near Huntsville, Alab. Received 

 from Mr. Wells of Princeton. Dec. 31, 1840." The "Vale of 

 Ovoca" cannot now be identified, and nothing seems to be 

 known of the collector; but Huntsville is in the northeastern 

 part of the state, and there is a small village named Princeton 

 in Jackson County, about 25 miles east-northeast of Huntsville, 

 which may have been there in 1840. 



There are mountains near Huntsville, with limestone slopes 

 on which many interesting plants grow, and Princeton is in a 

 valley with similar slopes, some of which ought to be a suitable 

 habitat for Erigenia, which seems to prefer rich shady woods 

 with neutral or slightly alkaline soils. The writer has visited 

 Huntsville a few times, beginning in March, 1906, and explored 

 some of the most promising mountain slopes; and passed 

 through Princeton late in June, 1932, and explored the same 

 valley about ten miles farther up, without finding any trace of 

 Erigenia. But it may be rather scarce in northeastern Alabama, 

 or else none of the recent botanical explorers have been there 

 at the right time to find it in bloom; and it is rather inconspicu- 

 ous at other times. Most of the specimens cited by Coulter and 

 Rose were collected in April or May, presumably in bloom; but 

 it blooms about two months earlier than that in Alabama, and 

 may wither away and disappear before midsummer, like several 

 other spring-flowering plants. 



On Feb. 16, 1906, I was walking along the railroad from 

 Kellerman to Holt, in the Warrior coal field of Tuscaloosa 

 County, Alabama. The rocks there are mostly shale, not per- 

 ceptibly calcareous, but containing a good deal of potash, which 



