Notes and News: T. C. Stotler, W. Wolf, and Visual Aids in Botany
One of the major problems which confronts the bryogeographer is the paucity of distributional information from many regions. This is especially critical in parts of the southeastern states and the writer hopes to fill in a few of these gaps in the record.
The Walhalla topographic quadrangle of the United States Geological Survey shows, in Rabun County, Georgia, a circle of high ridges southwest of Rabun Bald inclosing the valley of Mill Creek. The creek is better known as Darnell Creek, and that names appears on other maps. My wife had visited the creek several times during a vacation at Dillard in 1944, and from her I learned of the splendid waterfalls and unspoiled forests to be seen in the valley.
The earliest flowering dates of spring plants seem to have interested naturalists more than the latest dates of autumn species, with the result that records of fall-flowering species are probably less complete than those of the vernal ones. Of some twenty plants which may bloom well past the middle of November in the environs of New York City, three that I have found are given credit for that ability in the new eighth edition of Gray’s Manual of Botany. The common dandelion is dated “March-September, and more or less through winter”, the goldenrod, Solidago ulmifolia Muhl., is listed as flowering in August through November, and the witch-hazel, Hamamelis virginiana L., September-November.
For a year we had looked everywhere in Kentucky for plants – in the mountains, in the swamps, along the rivers, under the cliffs, in the rockhouses, everywhere – but it wasn’t until after our honeymoon that we realized that we hadn’t collected up in the trees. For there abided that alluring loranthid which so often eludes even the botanist’s attention – except upon occasion. Seemingly we had never found the occasion, till now. And now, we felt that more should be known about the distribution of Mistletoe in Kentucky. This report deals chiefly with the data of botanical importance which we have collected concerning the host distribution of Phoradendron flavescens in Kentucky.
During a study of the ratios of clockwise and counterclockwise spirality occurring in the phyllotaxy of several varieties and strains of Nicotiana tabacum L., and N. rustica L., some attention was given to several wild plants of other families, including both herbaceous and woody types. Among the herbaceous plants were the following: Wood nettle, Laportea canadensis (L.) Gaud. Urticaceae; smartweed, Polygonum hydropiper (?), Polygonaceae; lamb’s quarters, Chenopodium album L., Chenopodiaceae; pokeweed, Phytolacca americana L., Phytolaccaceae; garlic mustard, Alliaria officinalis Andrz., cruciferae; yarrow, Achillea millefolium L., compositae; goldenrod, Solidago altissima L., and S. serotina Ait., Compositae.