EARLIER HISTORY OF OUR DOGBANES. — I. 241 



CicuTA AMPi,A. Subterranean parts not seen, neither 

 even the basal or lower cauline leaves ; leaflets of the upper- 

 most, and not far below the umbels ovate-lanceolate, 3 to 3J^ 

 inches long, nearly IJ^ inches wide toward the base, coarsely 

 but very evenly crenate-serrate, the serratures very broad and 

 short, but very abruptly acute, both faces deep green, the 

 lower marked with elevated feather veins corresponding to the 

 serratures : branches and peduncles rather slender, glauces- 

 cent : fruits large, elongated, of oval-elliptic outline, nar- 

 rowed at summit to a distinct short neck, the 3 dorsal ribs 

 elevated and narrow, hardly broader than the intervals, in 

 cross section oblong, but the 2 laterals five times larger and 

 equilaterally triangular, almost acutely so. 



This remarkably distinct new cicuta is known to me only 

 in the fruiting summit of a single plant, with good fruits and 

 upper leaves, which was taken from somewhere near the 

 Michigan Agricultural College at Lansing, 8 Oct., 1891, by 

 the late Prof. C. F. Wheeler. Of such pronounced characters 

 both of foliage, as far as we know it, and especially of the 

 fruit, one naturally longs to know what its radical leaves and 

 its subterranean parts are like. 



Earlier History of our Dogbanes. — I. 



In that old folio of the year 1565 entitled Hortus Regius 

 Parisiensis, at page 22, occurs this expression of the name and 

 characteristics of a dogbane : Apocynum Indicum foliis An- 

 drosaemi majoris flore I,ilii convallium suaverubentis. This, 

 if so turned into English as to be rightly understood will read : 

 ' 'An American Apocynum with leaves like those of Hypericum 

 androsaemum, and flowers like those of the reddish variety of 

 the lily of the valley." 



This, in the folio of Joncquet, is the earliest account I have 

 met with of any American dogbane. By the terms of Jonc- 



