86 



Part of the next day it rained and we stayed indoors and were 

 kept busy sorting and pressing the most perishable parts of 

 the collections. Fortunately, mosses, hepatics, and lichens 

 can wait for light and comfort, so they were bundled up and 

 carried down to the Condado, where with plenty of running 

 water, cloths and trash baskets, it took four days more to clean 

 and arrange and number my collection, and the subsequent 

 study has shown it to be one of the largest and most interesting 

 of all our red-letter day gatherings. 

 New York Botanical Garden. 



SHORTER ARTICLES 



A New Bog-asphodel from the Mountains. — Four known 

 species have heretofore comprised the genus Ahama. Two 

 American, one on the eastern coast and one of the western 

 coastal region. The other two are European and Japanese 

 respectively. The following or fifth species may be described as: 



Abama montana Small, sp. nov. Perennial with a fibrous- 

 coated rootstock, sometimes tufted: basal leaves erect, mostly 

 1-2.5 dm. long, narrowly linear, about 8-veined, acuminate: 

 flowering stem 3-5 dm. tall, slender, glabrous, with several 

 remote narrow leaves which clasp the stem: raceme 5-8 cm. 

 long, rather loosely flowered: bracts setaceous, mostly 3-8 mm. 

 long: pedicelsabout twice as long as the bracts, slender: perianth 

 yellow: sepals almost linear, 6 mm. long, 3-veined: petals 

 narrowly linear-lanceolate, 3-veined: stamens about 4 mm. 

 long; anthers fully 1.5 mm. long: capsule narrowly conic, 

 shorter than the persistent perianth. — Swamp near Flat Rock, 

 North Carolina. 



It is not surprising that a bog-asphodel should come to light 

 in the mountains of North Carolina, as several kinds of plants 

 otherwise known only in the pine-barrens of the middle Atlantic 

 Coastal Plain also grow in the Appalachians. However, it is 

 interesting that the plant in question is a different species from 

 that of the lowlands. It is scarce, evidently rare, and may 

 be on the verge of extinction. It may be that in this species 

 we have one of the progenitors of the Ahama of the Coastal 

 Plain, for the high mountain region was the reservoir whence 

 many of our Coastal Plain plants were derived. 



