Volume 26 – Issue 4 (Dec 1961)

This book of range maps for Illinois plants is essentially a supplement to the Vascular Plants of Illinois, published in 1955. The supplement contains records concerning some 50,000 new herbarium specimens, representing 1375 species, collected since 1955. The method used is to show, on a county map of the state, every county in which the plant occurs; the old records (1955) are shown by circular dots while the new records (1955-1960) are shown on the same map as squares. Thus a user can see immediately whether new records have been found since 1955.

A book quite valuable to the naturalist interested in moving waters, i. e., streams, rivers, estuaries and lakes, is this, text by a Florida professor of Biology, George K. Reid. As most people who are interested in limnology or aquatic ecology know, not many general texts cover this field of moving waters, and information must be dug out of a large mass of literature. It is this gap that this book attempts to fill.

Everyone who deals with plants realizes that light has a definite effect upon plant growth, but few lay people have carried their interest much beyond that point. This reviewer believes most of them (and many professional biologists, for that matter) will be amazed to read this little book, and find how much is known about the effect of light on plants.

On May 3, 1959, Dr. Mary Humphreys, Professor of Biology at Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, Virginia, discovered on the north side of Betsy Bell Mountain, within the city limits of Staunton, the first recorded station in Virginia. for Geum vernum (Raf.) T & G. She states that there are from 15 to 20 plants, of it in that location. In 1961, Dr. Humphreys found three more stations for Geum vernum along a path in an old orchard along a Betsy Bell Mountain trail. These stations are in Augusta County, Virginia.

While doing field work in connection with another problem I collected an unusual specimen of Balduina angustifolia

Maryland’s plants lost one of their best friends on 6 April 1961, when George Russell Fessen den, Jr., died in his sleep of a heart-attack at his home in Baltimore. Dr. Fessenden, as he was known to his many friends, was admired by his fellow botanists for his, competence as a taxonoimist, plant-physiologist, and chemist; and was revered by his fellow conservationists and nature lovers for his valiant efforts and strenuous work in the cause of conservation of our native flora through his labors and leadership at the Cyl burn Wildflower Preserve in Baltimore.

During the past fifteen years an increase in strip-mining activities has served as the impetus for rekindling a once flourishing interest in the fossil plants of West Virginia. Unfortunately, this reawakening is considerably hampered by the lack of a general, but authoritative and well-illustrated, handbook to serve as a guide in classifying the specimens now being collected. The picture is further complicated by the fact that not only is the fossil flora imperfectly known, but there is, at the present time, no, recognized authority on the, floras or even anyone making a fulltime systematic study of them.

Two quite widespread species of Rhododendron have long been known in eastern Texas: R. canescens (Michx.) Sweet, with at least partly pink or rosy corollas expanding before the leaves, and R. oblongifolium (Small) Millais, with pure white corollas appearing, after the leaves. Both are shrubs of small to medium size (0.6-3.0 m. tall), with stems single or in clumps. In extreme southeastern Texas occurs a third Rhododendron which is consistently small (0.4-1.0 m. tall), has flowers which expand after the leaves (unfortunately information as to color is not available), and grows from a stout, woody rhizome. The eastern rhizomatous R. atlanticum (Ashe) Rehder is credited to, Texas in Gleason’s New Britton & Brown Illustrated Flora (vol. 3, p. 10; 1952), but Dr. Arthur Cronquist informs me that there is no, voucher specimen at New York, and the basis of this report is unknown. The Texas, plant differs from R. atlanticum in being freely branched, in having longer gland-tipped hairs on the corolla tube (0.8-1.0 mm. as against 0.4-0.6 mm.), and style minutely pubescent close to base (rather than prominently pubescent in balsal third or half). In general appearance the Texas plant resembles R. viscosum (L.) Torrey, a species which according to Rehder (in Wilson & Rehder, A Monograph of Azalea, Publ. Arnold Arb. 9: 15 7-159, 1921) reaches its southwestern limits in South Carolina and eastern Tennessee. The Texas plant differs from R. viscosum in being rhizomatous and in blooming in April instead of June—July.

While accumulating data for a cytotaxonomic study of certain Rubiaceae, it became obvious that numerous species endemic to isolated regions of Mexico and Central America were beyond practical reach. The scattered occurrence of these species, the seasonal and yearly fluctuations in rainfall, and finally overgrazing and overpopulation, made field work difficult and far too expensive for the number of species collected at any one time. So that the cytological part of the study could include some of these endemics, a technique was sought to grow in vitro the (usually) minute seeds of Hedyotis and its allies which could be taken in small numbers from herbarium sheets. A survey of several herbaceous species from Baja California, Mexico, showed that the embryos of some individuals were viable after drying and herbarium storage.

The genus Arenaria of the Caryophyllaceae cormprises some 160 species of plants and is almost world wide in distribution. These plants are particularly abundant in north temperate regions of the world. Aside from general interest in the group some of the species of this genus have attracted the attention of researchers due to the fact that they are grazed by higher animals. Also, many of the species grow in sandy soils and act as a deterrent to, soil erosion. Arenaria fendleri A. Gray var. fendleri Maguire grows abundantly in the environs of Las Vegas, New Mexico, where the material for this study was collected. According to Maguire (1947) this variety is, related to Arenaria capillaris Poir. var. americana. Maguire. The genus as a whole is held together by rather weak characteristics although the group seems to; be closely interrelated. The forms of the sepals, inflorescences, and leaves have been used as taxonomic criteria. Also, gland size and disposition, shape of the seeds, and the root stocks have been used to supplement those diagnostic features listed above. Some systematists have sub-divided the genus, into several groups.