NEW OR LITTLE KNOWN SPECIES OF TRILLIUM 



For a number of years the writer has been interested in the 

 genus Trillium. In the spring of 1886, a large yellow Trillium 

 was observed in the mountains of North Carolina. In the spring 

 of 1893, the same species was again observed in a different 

 locality and reported to several of the leading botanists of our 

 country. From the information received it was evident that 

 several species in this genus were imperfectly understood. Dr. 

 A. W. Chapman became sufficiently interested in this yellow Tril- 

 lium to modify his description of T. sessile L. , so as to admit a yel- 

 low form. Since then I have continued my observations in the 

 field, and during the past few years have had an opportunity to 

 study herbarium specimens from a wide range. The botanists of 

 our country during the latter part of the last century seern to have 

 had the idea that this genus contains a very limited number of 

 species, and there was a tendency to discard the proposed species 

 of the earlier botanists. This genus includes several species 

 which show a remarkable degree of variation, with a tendency to 

 produce aberrant forms. That some of these extreme forms should 

 have been mistaken for true species is very evident ; but that all 

 of the proposed species were invalid seems incredible. That all 

 of Rafinesque's thirty-four proposed species besides numerous 

 varieties were invalid seems hard to believe, and possibly- a few 

 of them were valid species ; but it would be a hopeless task to 

 attempt to revise his work, since many of his types are lost or 

 destroyed. It is, therefore, proper to state that the numerous 

 species proposed by Rafinesque have been ignored. 



It seems to be an accepted idea among botanists that the 

 color of the petals affords a character of but little taxonomic 

 value, and my own observations lead me to the same conclusion ; 

 but even though we conclude that color, size and shape of petals 

 and sepals and the length and position of the peduncle afford no 

 characters of sufficient value to constitute a species, there are sev- 

 eral forms with peduncled flowers which remain unclassified. 



In the present paper one species of peduncled Trillium is 



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