93 



About the same time specimens corresponding very well with 

 Nuttall's description were collected in Louisiana by Hale and in 

 Texas by Riddell and by Drummond, and these were doubtless 

 taken into consideration by Torrey & Gray in describing the 

 range of their "Bigelovia nudata,"* for they did not regard the 

 plant in question as specifically distinct. 



No such plant has since been found within sixty miles of 

 Savannah (Georgia), or within several hundred miles of New 

 Jersey. The Louisiana and Texas specimens are still preserved 

 in the Torrey Herbarium, but unfortunately, as in the case of 

 many others collected in the first half of the nineteenth century, 

 they are accompanied by no information about where they came 

 from other than the name of the state. The omission of all 

 data about habitat is especially disappointing, since in this 

 particular species its habitat is one of its most important charac- 

 ters, as will be shown presently. 



At various times in the second half of the 19th century our 

 plant was mentioned in floras of the northeastern and south- 

 eastern states, usually as a variety of C. nudata, and in the absence 

 of any accurate information to the contrary, it was assumed to 

 have about the same range and habitat as its better-known 

 relative, namely, the pine-barrens of the coastal plain. In 1894 

 Dr. Britton substituted Rafinesque's name Chondrophora for 

 DeCandolle's Bigelowia (which was a homonym), and the fol- 

 lowing year Prof. Greenef restored our plant to specific rank, 

 at the same time restricting the genus Chondrophora to these 

 two species, nudata and virgata. 



Twenty years ago, although the fact was probably not realized 

 at the time, Chondrophora virgata was as completely lost to 

 science as Franklinia, Elliottia, Chrysopsis pinifolia, Pentstemon 

 dissectus and Mesadenia diver sifolia, for no botanist then living had 

 ever seen it growing. But on Sept. 15, 1892, Dr. Charles Mohr 

 found on the rocky banks of Little River on Lookout Mountain 

 in DeKalb County, Alabama, about 1,600 feet above sea-level, 

 specimens of a plant which he identified with some hesitation 



*F1. N. A. 2: 232. 1842. See also Gray, Syn. Fl. N. A. i^: 141. 1884. 

 fErythea 3: 91. 1895. 



