A color phase of Sitilias caroliniana and some anal- 

 ogous variations in other genera 



Roland M. Harper 



Sitilias caroliniana (Walt.) Raf., 1 is a common weed of un- 

 known origin, 2 belonging to the Cichoriaceae, growing along 

 roads and railroads and in waste places in all the southeastern 

 states, and blooming mostly in May. 3 It looks much like a 

 dandelion both in flower and in fruit, except that it is taller, 

 with a branched stem instead of a scape, and its flowers are 

 usually lemon-yellow instead of golden yellow. The flowers open 

 on sunny mornings, and face the sun. The descriptions call for 

 a brownish pappus (whence one of its former generic names), 

 but in my experience it does not differ noticeably from that of 

 Taraxacum. 



Available descriptions mention no variation in color of flow- 

 ers, but in and around Tuscaloosa, Alabama, many of the plants, 

 perhaps as many as one-tenth in some areas, have the corollas, 

 stamens, etc., cream-colored instead of yellow, though appar- 

 ently identical in all other particulars, and having exactly the 

 same habitat and time of flowering. This is not a mere fluctu- 

 ation, as in many species whose flowers range all the way from 

 some definite color to white, for no intermediate forms have 

 ever been detected. And it can hardly be called an albino, for 



^his was first described in 1788 by Thomas Walter, who referred it to 

 the Old World genus Leontodon. Michaux in 1803, Pursh in 1814, and Nuttall 

 in 1818, referred it incorrectly to three other genera, and DeCandolle in 1838 

 made it the type of a new genus, Pyrrhopappus, overlooking or ignoring the 

 fact that Rafinesque had "beaten him to it" about two years before. De- 

 Candolle's name was accepted for half a century, and then Rafinesque's name 

 was unearthed and substituted for it by the nomenclature reformers of the 

 latter part of the 19th century. 



The conventional methods of citing synonymy, as typified for this species 

 in Mohr's Plant Life of Alabama (Contr. U.S. Nat. Herb. 6: 754. 1901), do 

 not make it plain why the generic names used by Walter, Michaux, Pursh and 

 Nuttall do not take precedence over Rafinesque's. There should be some in- 

 dication that the plant was incorrectly referred to those genera. 



2 For notes on native weeds see Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 35: 347-360. 1908; 

 37:117-120. 1910; Torreya 31: 1, 48. 1931. 



3 In northern Florida a few of the plants may bloom as early as February, 

 but not many before April. 



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