The type localities of some plants first 

 described from West Virginia 



Karl L. Cork 



In determining the exact usage of the scientific names of 

 plants it frequently is of very great importance to know the 

 exact locality of collection of the specimens upon which the 

 species were established. Specimens from the type locality of a 

 species might be expected to resemble the type much more 

 closely than specimens collected in other locaHties. However, 

 in the early days of taxonomy there was no definite concept of 

 types and type localities. Botanists simply assigned to their new 

 specimens large, indefinite areas such as "Virginia," "Carolina," 

 or "Pennsylvania," which are still more vague today because 

 of changes in the applications of the geographical names. 



Standley (Contrib. U.S. Nat'l. Herb., 13: 143-227. 1910) 

 has undertaken the preparation of a list of type localities of 

 plants from New Mexico. In his list of 690 plants from that 

 state, he calls attention to the much greater difficulty that 

 would be encountered in such a compilation for one of the 

 Eastern states because of the obstacles mentioned above. 



The present paper has been prepared merely as an intro- 

 duction to this problem. For the most part, the types enumer- 

 ated here are comparatively recent, after the type concept has 

 become well established. Designation of the type localities of 

 the plants described by such early explorers of West Virginia 

 as Michaux, Kin, Pursh, or Rafinesque would be very difficult, 

 in many cases impossible. It is especially difficult to locate 

 West Virginia stations in the field work of the early botanists 

 from the fact that their labels often read simply "Virginia." 

 Before 1784 Virginia extended indefinitely from the Atlantic 

 coast to and beyond the Ohio River, while the boundaries of 

 West Virginia were not established until 1863. Then, too, the 

 country was so thinly settled and localities so uncertainly 

 named that to ascribe definite geographic places to collected 

 plants was impossible to the traveller. Further research, how- 

 ever, will doubtless add several names to this list. 



White Sulphur Springs, in Greenbrier County, is remarkable 

 for the number of plants described from that locality. The 

 reason for this is that the well-known summer resort, often 



