Illinois Solanaceae in the Missouri Botanical Garden Herbarium and Biographical Sketches of Some Collectors

Abstract

Nine species of Physalis from Illinois, including one previously unrecorded from Illinois, are in MO. The nomenclature for the Illinois Physalis used in this paper follows Mohlenbrock (1975). Most significant of the collections is a specimen of texana Rydb. The specimen, collected by George Engelmann from St. Clair County, represents the only known Illinois collection. This collection apparently has never been recorded in the literature, even though it bears an annotation label by A. Rydberg. Rydberg studied the United States species of Physalia during the last part of the nineteenth century. He published his findings in 1896 in the Memoirs of the Torrey Botanical Club. In that work, Rydberg described texana from Texas, citing a collection by Heller as the type. He also cited a Lindheimer collection from Texas, a duplicate of which is in MO, and annotated by Rydberg. It is interesting to note that although Rydberg had annotated the Illinois specimen P. texana sp. nov. ?, he failed to cite the collection in his work. The Illinois specimen is extremely close in appearance to