31 



find, variahilit\' of color between white and p\uk is characteristic 

 of the European plant,* rather than a normal "pink or flesh- 

 color." This species, Limosella aqnatica, appears to be the most 

 cosmopolitan member of the Scrophulariaceae, and its simple 

 flower-structure and acaulescent habit mark it as primitive. 

 It occurs to-day upon all the continents, and is even credited to 

 New Zealand. Whether eventual knowledge will show that it 

 has held conservatively true throughout its supposed range may 

 be doubted, but certain it is that deviations are mostly slight 

 and remote. However in widely scattered parts of the earth 

 it has "thrown ofT " suggestively parallel species. Thus Limosella 

 subidata may be closely duplicated in the Vancouver Island 

 region, and in Argentina— but a priori assumption would be that 

 these are not identical with it. 



My field-acquaintance with Limosella siibulata has been con- 

 fined to one colony, but that fortunately extensive, growing 

 about the margins of Old Sams Pond, Point Pleasant, New 

 Jersey. This is a small pond of fresh water lying in the lea of 

 the coast sand-dunes. The Garden herbarium shows a consid- 

 erable series of specimens from sandy margins of such fresh sand- 

 dune ponds, ranging from here northeastward to Nantucket. f 

 These plants are partially, though inconstantly recognizable, 

 from the species of muddy saline tidal habitats by their pedicels 

 being more recurving, their capsules blacker; their sepals more 



* The following quotations, chosen from various countries, confirm this: Baxter, 

 Brit. Phan. Bot. pi. 212, "pale rose-colored or white," illustrated as white; Sowerbj', 

 .Engl. Bot. 5: pi. 357, "whitish without, red on the inside," illustrated as pink; 

 Reichenbach, Ic. Fl. Germ. 20: 54. pi. 1722, "corolla albida; maculae brunneae sub 

 basi cujusvis laciniae corollae, suppositae intus saltem maculae citrinae," illustrated 

 as described; Coste, Fl. France 3: 27, "blanches ou rosees"; Murino, Fl. Galicia 

 100. "blanca"; Schinz & Keller, Fl. Schweiz 456. "weisse od. rotlichweisse"; 

 Parlatore, Fl. Ital. 6: 546, "bianchiccio." 



t A letter from Mr. E. P. Bicknell, concerning Limosella on Nantucket, em- 

 phasizes its occurrence about the sandy margins of "closed," that 'is completely 

 land-locked ponds. Some of these are freshwater, but one is mentioned as probably 

 at least partly brackish. He calls attention to the fact that in ponds which stretch 

 some miles inland from the shore Limosella will occur only at the shoreward 

 extremities. Specimens sent from the deeper water of certain ponds much exceed 

 in length of leaves the dimensions of the key above, and in coarseness of growth are 

 like the tide-water plant. The halophytism of Limosella subiilala would make a 

 valuable physiological study. 



