Volume 29 – Issue 3 (Sep 1964)

Of Bluefield, West Virginia, a member of the Southern Appalachian Botanical Club, died on March 6, 1964 in the Bluefield Sanitarium. Dr. Hosmer was a native of Sanford, Maine. He received his M.D. degree in 1928 from the University of Michigan Medical School. He served an internship at the Maryland General Hospital in Baltimore, 192 8-29. He joined the staff of the Bluefield Sanitarium in 1930. He did post-graduate work in orthopedics at the Harvard and New York University Medical Colleges. Dr. Hosmer was a member of the Mercer County Medical Society, West Virginia State Medical Association, Southern Medical Association and American Medical Association.

A member of the Southern Appalachian Botanical Club, died April 7, 1964, at his home in Sago, West Virginia. He was a graduate of West Virginia Wesleyan Seminary and College of Buckhannon, West Virginia. Mr. Grose taught at Glenville College for a number of years and after retiring, he maintained an active interest in the profession of botany. Surviving are his wife, Lulu Floyd Grose; one daughter, Mrs. Walter G. House of Westover AFB, Mass.; two sons, Edward C. Grose of Terra Alta and William S. Grose, of Sago; two brothers, Arthur G. Grose and Wilber W. Grose, both of Sago.

Of Auerhaven, Ligonier, Pa., a member of the Southern Appalachian Botanical Club, died at her home on May 20, 1964. She is survived by her brother, Carl, of Ligonier. She graduated in botany at the University of Pittsburgh in 1927, under Dr. O. E. Jennings. The same year she became a member of the Audubon Society and the Botanical Society of Western Pennsylvania. She was nature counsellor for the Allegheny County Girl Scouts for many years, assisting at their summer camps. She was a charter member of the Pittsburgh Garden Center and the Ligonier Valley Garden Club. She moved to Ligonier in 1951 and became affiliated with the Westmoreland County Botanical Society and the Western Pennsylvania Nature Conservancy.

The Ohio Cruciferae may be divided into three general groups, (1) the indigenous flora, (2) the introduced flora or “weeds” and (3) the escaped cultivars. The purpose of this paper is threefold, (1) to provide an annotated list of Cruciferae of Ohio with an accompanying list of synonyms, (2) to provide a record of distribution by counties and (3) to correlate distribution with Ohio’s soil regions.

Poke or Pokeweed, Phytolacca americana L., is a common and well-known weed throughout eastern United States. Phytolacca rigida Small is limited to the lower Coastal Plain of southeastern United States. Although I tend to consider these as distinct, the validity of P. rigida, at least as a species, is questionable. Careful study of the populations, utilizing modern techniques, should be able to resolve this problem without too much difficulty. The observations which follow are published in the hope that they may lead to a more thorough investigation by someone able to make the necessary field observations of P. rigida. Interest in this problem arose from a survey of Phytolacca as a genus of poisonous plants in North Carolina (Hardin, 1961) and from my collections of the two species in Georgia and Florida.

This study of the aquatic vascular plants of Devil’s Kitchen Lake, Williamson County, Illinois, was undertaken to identify additional species, to investigate aquatic succession, and to contrast the results with those of Mohlenbrock, et al. (1962) on the basis of their publication that record.ed the flora of this lake during the period of initial filling, subsequent to impoundment. Since the water in Devil’s Kitchen Lake had not attained maximum depth at the time of Mohlenbrock, et al. (l.c.) study in the fall of 1960, they unavoidably failed to identify typical aquatic forms commonly represented in the more mature eutrophic lakes of the area. Not until March, 1961, following heavy spring rains, did Devil’s Kitchen Lake overflow the basin at the spillway. Thus, the opportunity to gain a greater understanding of primary succession in newly impounded waters of southern Illinois and to update the list of aquatic plants in Devil’s Kitchen Lake provided the basis for this investigation.

For several years I have been engaged, with the assistance of my students, in the study of morphological variation in various angiosperm genera. We have utilized a series of “numerical” techniques in the belief that we thereby attained a greater degree of accuracy and objectiveness that is possible by more conventional techniques. The present paper is an account of studies in three genera, Mimulus, Valeriana, and Geranium. These studies were carried out during the summer of 1961 at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory at Gothic, Gunnison County, Colorado, and most of the plant samples utilized were obtained in the vicinity of the Laboratory, in the Upper East River Basin, at elevations in the neighborhood of 9500′.

All taxa listed in this paper have been collected and identified by the author in connection with a floristic study of Roanoke Island in Dare County, North Carolina. Verification of the author’s identifications has been made by H. L. Blomquist, of Duke University (grasses), H. R. Totten, University of North Carolina (trees), H. E. Ahles and A. E. Radford, University of North Carolina (all others), to whom thanks are expressed. J. E. Adams’ critical review of the manuscript is especially appreciated.