Among the booklets on the newsstands which someone has dubbed “purple pulp in bearskin covers” a Wild Flower Guide has appeared. At first this seemed rather insulting, but after looking inside and finding how hastily it had been slung together, one can not but feel that it deserves this fate.
Notes and News: West Virginia
My observations lead me to infer that the common dooryard plantain, Plantago rugelii Decaisne, normally produces simple, unbranched, fruiting spikes. In fact, until quite recently, I do not recall having ever seen a plant with a branched spike.
This paper is an attempt to revise the classification of the Hypericaceae of West Virginia. Since most of the members of this family are inconspicuous late summer blooming flowers that last but a day, they have not been collected in great numbers nor has any critical study of this group been made heretofore in this State.
During the Spring of 1948 the author found, growing abundantly at Hopemont, West Virginia, a species of Hieracium which was typical of neither Hieracium pratense Tausch nor Hieracium floribundum Wimm. and Grab. but possessing traits of both these species. This led to a study of the West Virginia species of this genus and after completing the study it still remains the most perplexing problem encountered in the work.
This paper is an attempt to classify the genera of Caprifoliaceae occurring within the State. The study is based on the specimens in the Herbarium of West Virginia University. Use has been made also of some specimens from the Herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden.
West Virginia has one of the most irregular outlines of any State in the Union. Various “panhandles” and lobes extend its territory to distances relatively far removed from the main body of the State, which fact is significant in any consideration of the phytogeography, as carrying its territory into latitudes and longitudes remarkably distant from one another, in view of the comparatively small area (24,181 sq. mi.) of the entire State. It is variously regarded as one of the northern, southern, eastern or western states. Its northern “panhandle” extends into the latitude of Staten Island; to the south it extends 60 miles below the latitude of Richmond; its eastern “panhandle” extends 50 miles east of the longitude of Buffalo; and its westernmost tip is 40 miles farther west than Cleveland.