20 



farther north along the Hudson River. The latter had come into 

 bloom some two weeks before, whereas the flower-buds of this 

 Staten Island plant were still very immature. I had never col- 

 lected the species familiar to me, taking for granted — a cardinal 

 sin in systematic botany — that it was our supposedly well-known 

 T. perfoliatum, the only red-flowered species allowed by the books. 

 Now, however, upon the first occasion, the two plants were care- 

 fully compared and it needed no profound study to find out that 

 . they were distinct species. 



The essential or rather the most obvious difference between 

 the two is seen in the main leaves which, broadly perfoliate in 

 true perfoliatum, are in the new species conspicuously narrowed 

 into a merely sessile base. This, however, holds true only of the 

 principal sets of leaves. In the upper leaves a curious reversal of 

 these characters is frequent. In perfoliatum the upper leaves are 

 often, or usually, narrowly sessile ; in the contrasted plant they 

 are sometimes distinctly connate. 



Just here is encountered a difficulty which I have found insuper- 

 able in attempting the correlation of any of Rafinesque's descrip- 

 tions with the present new plant. Parts of most of these descrip- 

 tions seem to point toward it ; other parts seem to have a different 

 bearing. It would appear that Rafinesque must have had the 

 species but there is no certainty in regard to this nor as to the 

 positive application of any of his names. Those which do not 

 refer unmistakably to Triosteum perfoliatum or to T. angustifolium 

 may refer, for anything which appears to the contrary, either to 

 forms or fragments of T. perfoliatum, or to species as yet un- 

 known. Ingoing over the matter with Dr. Britton, we have been 

 able to reach no other conclusion than this. The case seems 

 analogous to that of the genus Lecliea, about which Rafinesque 

 knew a great deal in a careless and incoherent way or, at least, 

 so set down what he knew, making his descriptions varitable enig- 

 mas to us at the present day. 



Triosteum aurantiacum sp. nov. — Stem 5-12 dm. tall, 

 glandular-puberulent to weakly hirsute, simple and erect or late 

 in the season sometimes declined : leaves thin, entire or rarely 

 subsinuate, becoming 1.5-2.5 dm. long and 8-10 cm. wide, 

 ovate-oblong to oblong-lanceolate, acute, attenuate at both ends, 



