New Pteridophyte Records from Missouri

Abstract

While botanizing a deeply dissected area of La Motte sandstone topography in Ste. Genevieve county in the southeastern portion of the Ozark Mountains, the junior author, in company with Dr. Robert Thorne, of the University of Iowa, discovered nearly fifty plants of Lycopodium obscurum var. dendroideum. The dark green, erect branches stood out in sharp contrast to the pale green color of the thick bed of Sphagnum compactum in which the plants were growing on the upper, shaded, steep slopes of one of the narrow bluff-rimmed sandstone gorges of the headwaters of the River aux Vases. The collection data are: Steyermark 72506, La Motte sandstone bluffs along upper reaches of River aux Vases, T 35 N, R 7 E, west part of sect. 34 and east half of sect. 33, 3?-4 miles northwest of Avon, Ste. Genevieve Co., August 30, 1951. This discovery marks a new southwestern limit of distribution for the species and its variety, hitherto known southwestward to Georgia and Tennessee. The sandstone region in which the discovery was made is famous for its harboring of other eastern and northern relics, such as Lycopodium complanatum var. flabelliforme, Dennstaedtia punctilobula, Goodyera pubescens, and Bryoxiphium norvegicum, which are isolated here at or near their southwestern limits of dispersal. The addition of this species of Lycopodium brings to four the total number of this genus known from Missouri. The others 61