148 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



Hibiscus roseus of Thore — a species supposed to be indigenous to the southeastern 

 coast of France, also found in Italy — with our Marsh Hibiscus. He is not 

 aware that the same identification has been made by Mr. Daydon Jackson, and 

 published a year or two ago in the nineteenth volume of the Journal of tin I/in" 

 nean Society, London. Dr. Guillaud has had the advantage of seeing the two 

 plants growing spontaneously, ours in the neighborhood of New York, the other 

 in the marshes of the Landes. II. roseus has also been found in North Italy, in 

 the marshes of the Po and lagunes of the Adriatic, and, according to Dr. Guil- 

 laud, specimens have been received from Asia Minor, but no mention is made 

 of it in Boissier's Flora Orientalis. 



Is this species indigenous to Europe as well as to the Atlantic coats of 

 North America? Is it a survival from the time when the floras of Europe and 

 Eastern America had more common elements, than they now have? Or has it 

 somehow been conveyed across the Atlantic, and if so, whether at some early 

 period, or within historic times? Questions not easily answered. If the first, 

 then this plant, like a few others that might be named, is in Europe what Con- 

 vallaria majalis, Litlorella lacustris, Marsilia quadriflora, Scolopendriurn and perhaps 

 Calluna are in North America. In favor of the second view, and even of a late 

 and casual introduction, it is to be said, as Dr. Guillaud notes, that Thore 

 found the plant on the coast of France only at the beginning of this century ; 

 that it was unknown to Tournefort, who botanized around Bayonne in the au- 

 tumn of 1688; that the plant has disappeared from the particular stations 

 where Thore found it and where it was said to abound, and that it is uow more 

 rare than formerly. Its spread from the Atlantic coast to that of the Adriatic 

 may be owing to the carriage of seeds by marsh birds. Indeed, Dr. Guillaud 

 thinks it may have been brought to Europe by sea birds. On the other hand, 

 since it is now found in the district near Mantua, he quotes the lines in Virgil's 

 Eclogues, in which the stems of Hibiscus are twice mentioned, in a way by no 

 means mal-a-propos ; but he thinks they might as well apply to Marsh-mallow. 

 It appears that the specific name Moscheutos came to Linna-us through Cornuti. 

 from a " Rosa Moscheutos" of Pliny, some kind of Rose-mallow, we may sup- 

 pose. Since the two Linmvan species are clearly one, it is a pity that the name 

 H. palustris was not chosen. Torrey and Gray are responsible for that. The 

 reason of the choice was, that H. Moscheutos stands first in the book, and H. pa- 

 lustris is merely differentiated from that — reasons which need not have pre- 

 vailed. A. Gray. 



Vincetoxicum. — Following some authority, which it is now not worth 

 while to look up, it appears that in the Synoptical Flora of N. America, I ha< 

 derived this name from " vincues, that serves for binding" and toxicum. Dr 

 Hance, in Britten's Journal of Botany for May, 1883, notes, (1) that the only au 

 thority for this adjective is a line of Plautus in which vincea is now known t 

 have been a mistake of some copyist for juncea, and (2), that the old herbalists 

 Fuchs and Matthiolus, clearly indicate that the Latin part of this hybrid nam' 

 is from vincere, to conquer. 



Stipules in Saxifrag'aeese are of small account, as Prof. Coulter's pupL' 

 show me by sending Mitella diphylla with good stipules between the caulin 

 leaves. It seems to be regularly so. 



"Breweria minima," Gray, in Proc. Am. Acad, xvii, 228, is Convolvuh 

 pentapetaloides of Linnaeus, and doubtless was introduced into California from thi 

 Mediterranean region, probably with grain. It turns up from various parts oi 

 California of late. The style and stigmas are truly as in Convolvulus. 



A. Gray. 



