52 Edward T. Browne, Jr. 



Corn Island is situated in the Ohio River at Louisville. It has un- 

 dergone considerable physical change associated with dam and canal 

 construction, and the locality in which this species once occurred is 

 thought to exist no longer. Growth of the metropolitan area of the city 

 of Louisville has resulted in total destruction of the natural vegetation 

 of great areas in the vicinity. It would appear, therefore, that all the 

 former stations of this species in the area have been destroyed. If 

 this species now occurs elsewhere in Kentucky, it is not known. 



Among the manuals, only the second edition of Britton and Brown's 

 Illustrated Flora (1913) reports the species for Kentucky. It is pos- 

 sible that the species may be found in Henderson and Union Counties 

 since Deam (1940) reports it from Posey Co., Indiana, which is across 

 the Ohio River from these counties. 



On the basis of the distribution of Amianthium muscaetoxicum 

 (Walt.) Gray, crow poison, in Campbell Co., Tennessee ( McGilliard, 

 1955 ) , it was suspected that this species might also occur in Kentucky 

 since this county is adjacent to the state. Only two records are known 

 of its occurrence in the state, however, and each of these is 122 years 

 old. Apparently on the basis of these specimens the species is indi- 

 cated in Gray's Manual, 7th ed., (Robinson and Fernald, 1908) and 

 the New Britton and Brown (Gleason, 1952) to occur in Kentucky. 

 It is not exactly clear what is included in the range given the species 

 in Gray's Manual, 8th ed., (Fernald, 1950) which reads: "Fla. to s. 

 Mo. and Okla., n. along the mts. to W. Va. and Pa." This could include 

 Kentucky except that the only previous reports of the species have not 

 been from the mountains. In addition, Britton and Brown (1913) 

 give the range as: ". . . Long Island and eastern Pennsylvania to 

 Florida, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas." It is not possible to deter- 

 mine whether Kentucky was meant to be included, nor is it possible 

 to tell what is included in the distribution of the species given by Small 

 (1903, 1933). In the manuals, when a species is no longer thought to 

 be present in an area, it is customary to so indicate by the use of 

 expressions such as "formerly in such and such an area" or by similar 

 terminology. For both this species and Smilacina stellata no such 

 reference is made in one of the more recent manuals (Fernald, 1950). 



The only collections of A. muscaetoxicum from Kentucky known to 

 exist are the following: 



Todd Co. Meadows and barrens near Elkton. June 5th 1840. 



C. W. Short, M.D, s.n. (PH 784795) 

 ( ? Co. ). Barrens of Kentucky. May 1840. C. W. Short, M.D., 



s.n. (PH, NY) 



