Volume 26 – Issue 3 (Sep 1961)

Notes and News: Auburn University and Andrographis

Many new genera and species of Amaranthaceae have been introduced into eastern United States with chrome, iron and other ores in the past ten years. Some of these have become weedy and have spread over considerable areas in the regions studied. Many have persisted since 1953 when this study was begun. In Maryland the areas are mainly in Baltimore City (Canton, Dundalk, Port Covington) along the port. In Virginia the area is near Newport News.

Habenaria blephariglottis (Willd.) Hook., the White Fringed Orchid, and H. ciliaris (L.) R. Br., the Yellow Fringed Orchid, are both common in the southeastern Coastal Plain of the United States. Correll (1950)1 mentions the possibility of hybrids occurring where these species grow together. Such a hybrid population, within an area of approximately 100 square yards, was found in Brunswick County, North Carolina on August 26, 1961. This small population contained twenty-one plants: three with the completely white flowers of H. blephariglottis, seven with the deep orange of H. ciliaris, and eleven obviously intermediate in color. These intermediates were not completely uniform but varied from an orange-cream to a pale orange. In some the lip was nearly white while the sepals, and lateral petals were more orange. Because of this lack of uniformity among the intermediates it appeared as if these may represent introgressants rather than simple F, hybrids. These twenty-one

Dr. Roland M. Harper (1944), in an article in part about Plantago cordata, writes: “An interesting but problematical early reference, which may pertain to this species, is by William Bartram, in a manuscript report to Dr. Fothergill on his travels in Georgia and Florida in 1773 and 1774.” Francis Harper, who annotated this manuscript for publication (Bartram in Harper, 1943), identified the plantain as P. cordata, presumably on the basis of Bartram’s description. Roland Harper (1944), although allowing room for doubt as the specific identity of the plant, seems inclined to agree that it must have been P. cordata, but states: “. . . . I have found no other record of occurrence of P. cordata in Georgia, though I have been in every county in the state. But its distribution is sporadic at best, and some stations for it may have been destroyed by civilization and there is a

Although the wild Bignoniaceae of the South are few in number and taxonomically simple, there is no single publication in which all are listed with correct nomenclature. Such recent authoritative references as those of Bailey (1949), Rehder (1949), Fernald (1950), Gleason (1952), and Little (1953) disagree not only with earlier works of Schumann (in Engler & Prantl, 1895), Small (1903, 1913, 1933), and Standley (1926), but also with each other. One could hardly find a better illustration of the handicaps under which those interested in the Southern flora must work.