68 



THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



the foremost in South America and contains a large number of 

 herbarium specimens representing nearly 35,000 distinct spe- 

 cies. Ferns are one of Dr. Hicken's specialties and are unusu- 

 ally well represented. Several illustrations of the museum ap- 

 pear in the August, 1912, number of Physis a natural history 

 publication printed in Spanish. 



White Sassafras. — Every country boy knows the sassa- 

 fras and apparently some country boys know the plant better 

 than the botanists do ; at least, in some parts of our country, 

 they have made a distinction between two forms of this plant 

 which the botanists have rarely recognized. The more common 

 form is sometimes called red sassafras and is the one bearing 

 the scientific name Sassafras vamfolhnn or S. officinalis. The 

 less familiar form is known as white sassafras and has recently 

 been listed in our flora as ^. variifolium var. albidiun. The 

 white sassafras is a more glaucous plant than the common form 

 and the roots are reported to possess more of the pungent pro- 

 perty so characteristic of this species. It is said that the 

 mountaineers of the Carolinas have always recognized the dif- 

 ference and invariably select the white form when digging the 

 roots for the well known spring tonic, sassafras tea. Nuttall 

 regarded this plant as a separate species, but it is now believed 

 to be a mere form of the common sassafras. 



Viola Pedata and its Variety. — The bird-foot violet 

 (Viola pedata), is a common and well-known inhabitant of 

 sandy or sterile areas from the Mississippi valley to the Atlantic 

 Coast. In part of its range it presents two forms, the more 

 common one having all the petals colored lavender or lilac 

 purple and the other having the two upper petals deep purple 

 and the remaining petals nearly white. By some twist in the 

 nomenclature of the species, or some obliquity in the nomen- 

 claturists themselves, the rare form is known as V. pedata and 

 the common one as V. pedata var. lineariloha. The new Gray's 

 Manual makes this distinction but Britton does not notice it. 



