The Purple Cliffbrake, Pellaea atropurpurea (L.) Link, is a fern which is largely confined to limestone soils. Maurice Brooks (1938) says “So rarely is the species found away from limestone that its discovery on sandstone is something of an event.”
The Purple Cliffbrake, Pellaea atropurpurea (L.) Link, is a fern which is largely confined to limestone soils. Maurice Brooks (1938) says “So rarely is the species found away from limestone that its discovery on sandstone is something of an event.”
This rather handsome weed, with fimbriate-lobed pale-eyed bluish corolla, grows abundantly north and west of Glasgow, Rockbridge County, Virginia, along dirt roads, railroad embankments and adjacent fields, and the banks of the Maury and James rivers. Specimens were taken May 1, 1963 for deposition in the her baria of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and of Lynchburg College. Phacelia Purshii Buckl. is an addition to the Virginia flora. Identification was confirmed by Dr. A. B. Massey.
Small’s Manual includes North Carolina in the range of Pachystima. This record is based possibly on the statement in the “Woody Plants of Western North Carolina” (by House, 1913, Bull. Biltmore Forestry School) which indicated that it was a “rare shrub on cliffs and shaded banks of northwestern section.” No specimen has been located to vouch for this statement. A discussion of this enigma as well as the known distribution of this species was published by Dr. A. B. Massey in 1940 (Castanea 5:8-11).
Malva sylvestris L. was found near East Rainelle about 100 yards from U. S. 60. It is well established and is in no danger of being eradicated. August 8, 1963.
An unusual common name for a familiar Appalachian wild flower came to light recently through an inquiry from Mrs. Ronald Neal, Redmond, Oregon, to Earl L. Core, relative to a plant she had known as “Tangle-Gut” while living as a young girl in Williamson, W. Va. I had also heard this name under rather unusual circumstances. Robert Chapman and I were on Miller’s Creek, Mingo County, W. Va., admiring the profusion of the beautiful pink-veined flowers of the broad-leaved spring beauty (Claytonia caroliniana) when some mountain men came along with bags in their hands, plucking the leaves of the spring beauty and putting them in bags. When we asked them what they were going to do with it, they replied: “We’re gathering tangle-gut to take home to kill with grease and eat for salad.”
The flora of Florida is more diverse and in many respects more interesting than that of any other state in eastern North America, and yet it is quite inadequately treated in published form. No book yet written has been dedicated to the task of bringing together and summarizing current knowledge of the state’s flora. That person, either professional or advanced amateur, who desires to identify with precision some member of the vascular flora of Florida has little choice but to grope through the intricacies of J. K. Small’s Manual of the Southeastern Flora, fully aware that mastery of its taxonomy may still leave him bemused by its obsolete and elsewhere almost forgotten American Code nomenclature. Or, if he is fortunate, he may find that a modern monograph covers the group in which he is interested, and his problem is simply one of discarding the irrelevant verbiage of extra-territorial species.
A textbook of Microbiology, designed for elementary courses, yet with sufficient materials and methods to provide a basis for more advanced work. The basic areas covered are bacteria, fungi, and algae, along with the “related” organisms; the physiology of these forms; and the methods of detection, determination and prevention, i.e., applied microbiology.
In the winter of 1963 while some herbarium work was being done at the Chicago Natural History Museum, a specimen of Allium was observed which had been identified by the collectors as A. vineale L. The length of the pedicels, the absence of bulbils in the inflorescence, and the number of flowers in the inflorescence were unlike those characteristics of A. vineale, and a closer look at this specimen revealed that its true identity was A. ampeloprasum. In this specimen, the leaves were one centimeter or more wide and flattened, while in A. vineale, the leaves are terete and hollow with their width rarely exceeding half a centimeter even in robust specimens. This sheet was, therefore, annotated with the proper identification.
The following taxa have apparently not been recorded before from Louisiana. Voucher specimens are deposited in the herbarium of the University of Southwestern Louisiana (LAF).
The following botanical records are additional to those published by the writer in the March, 1963 issue of Castanea 28:10-38. Specimens of collections cited are in the herbaria of West Virginia Wesleyan College at Buckhannon and West Virginia University at Morgantown.