Heterotheca subaxillaris (Lam.) Britton & Rusby

Reprinted from Rhodora, Vol. 56, No. 668, 1954
Heterotheca subaxillaris on Long Island, New York.—
The New York International Airport in Queens County, Long
Island, New York is apparently the northernmost station for
Heterotheca subaxillaris (Lam.) Britt. & Rusby.
The writer first observed the species at this locality in the
late summer of 1950, its weedy annual or biennial yellow ray-
flowered plants amassed in large ribbon-like colonies along the
access and service roads and the airstrips of the nearly five
thousand acres of dry sandy reclaimed salt marsh which consti-
tute the terrain of this vast air terminus. Observations over
three subsequent growing seasons indicate these colonies are
well-established and increasing.
Fernald1 indicates that the original range of H. subaxillaris
would seem to have been Florida to Arizona and Mexico, hav-
ing spread northeastwardly to Delaware long ago (and north-
wardly to Kansas). Yet it was only in 1939 that the same au-
thor2 collected in Isle of Wight County, Virginia the first speci-
men of H. subaxillaris to be recorded from between North
Carolina and Maryland. Perhaps this is more a picture of
incomplete reporting than of actual distribution. Gleason3
cites a specimen taken from ballast in Philadelphia in 1864.
Tatnall4 observed that the species was well established in south-
ern New Jersey (near Philadelphia) in 1946, and ventured the
opinion that the species was apparently spreading rapidly north-
ward. The present writer’s collection ninety miles to the north-
east may bear out this suggestion. In 1953, several plants were
seen just outside the perimeter of the airport. In view of the
abundant local ecological conditions favorable to this xerophyte,
and taking into account its windborn achenes, the spread of
H. subaxillaris eastward on Long Island, and perhaps even
farther north on the Coastal Plain should be watched for.
The possible source of H. subaxillaris on Long Island is a
matter of some interest. In attempting to hold the shifting
sands of the New York International Airport, the Port Au-
thority engineers planted thousands of tufts of beach grass ob-
tained from various sources, only one of which, in Delaware,
1 Fernald, M. L.	1950.	Gray’s Manual of Botany, 8th edition, p. 1378.
*	Fernald, M. L.	1939.	Rhodoua 41: 469, 571.
1 Gleason, H. A.	1952. The New Britton & Brown Illustrated Flora, vol. 3,
p. 412.
*	Tatnali., R. R.	1946.	Flora of Delaware and the Eastern Shore, p. 256.
Family COViPQSrTAE
Heterotheca latifolia Buckley
var. mcgregorii Wagenknecht
Annotated August, 1958 by B. L. Wagenknecht
.i.	WW *
NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN
.........02906815
hu, Uft*l	£*
Scientific Name
HETEROTHECA SUfcAXialflfe
Common
Name CAMfHOttVieEp
Locality tpirvuip Ain.roR.T_t.i
Habitat RCAfcYtPES	SAMP
Remarks
•Collected by
L. J. UTTAL Date 9/3tf/fr2.
02906815