72 LEAFLETS. 



A Rare Swertia. 



While of late inspecting with some degree of carefulness the 

 North American specimens of Swertia in the National Herbar- 

 ium, my attention was held by a very fair specimen from 

 Moutiiua which preseuted at first glance a marked unlikeliness 

 to all others in one peculiarity of its foliage. The leaves of the 

 bulk of the specimens of whatever species, are remarkably thin 

 when dry, and devoid of any apparent venation beyond what is 

 represented by a single often quite prominent midvein. Bi;t 

 this Montana plant presents leaves evidently of a particularly 

 firm texture, their upper face showing five almost equally prom- 

 iaent parallel nerves, so that, in case of my finding it unde- 

 scribed, I had purposed calling it by a name that would have 

 been iu allusion to plantain-like panillel-nerved foliage. 



In looking into the earlier bibliography of the genus, I very 

 naturally encountered the name of S. fastigiata, Pursh, pub- 

 lished by that author ninety years ago, on a plant from the 

 upper Missouri near the Eocky Mountains, therefore from the 

 identical region whence this specimen had come. And in his 

 diagnosis of his species, brief though it be, mention is made of 

 just the two characters my own first inspection of the specimen 

 in hand had revealed as those warranting the proposal of a 

 species, namely, the conspicuously nerved foliage, and the exces- 

 sively long sepals, these nearly equalling the corolla; and Pursh 

 says " corollis longitudini calycis " while in all other American 

 Swertias the calyx is notably shorter than the corolla. The 

 corollas of our specimen appear also to have been of a light 

 blue, whereas in the common Swertia scopulina, Greene, of the 

 whole Eocky Mountain region the flowers are of a dark blue- 

 purple, very dark. Yet even as to color we have here another 

 mark of Pursh's S. fastigiata, the flowers of which are said by 

 him to be "sky blue." 



The specimen made the subject of these comments is by 

 Eydberg and Bessey, their n. 4699 as in XJ. S. Herb., obtained 

 by them in Jack Creek Canon, Montana, 15 July, 1897. There 

 is no doubt that in this, at least as seen on sheet n. 390,186, we 

 have the rediscovery of a plant long lost, and very likely some- 

 what rare, S. fastigiata, Pursh. 



