Original Combination:

Named for memory of the trip in which is was collected that included a party of five members.

Original Description:

Shell about the size of V. indentata; glossy, pink-brown, openly umbilicated, convex above, composed of 4 1/2 whorls, those of the¬ spire slowly widening, the last much wider; surface sculptured with many unevenly spaced radiating grooves similar in character to those of V. indentata, but more numerous; and there are some striae intermingled, the spire being more closely striate. No mentionable spiral striae seen with an enlargement of fifty diameters. The grooves continue upon the base, but are weaker there. Aperture broadly lunate. Alt. 2 1/2, greatest diam. 5 mm.
Cade's Cove, Blount county, Tenn., in many places — " Roe's" and " Sugar" Coves, " Rowan's" and Laurel creeks — from about 1,800 to 2,200 feet elevation. Apparently wanting in the higher region, at least not found by us along the crests and peaks; but taken by Ferriss and Sargent on Stratton Bald, in the Unaka Mountains, Graham county, N. C, at what altitude not known, and at or below the level of Cade's Cove on the Cheoah river, near the junction of Yellow creek, and in Monroe county, Tenn., at Tallassee ford of the Little Tennessee river, near Caringer.
This Vitrea may be briefly characterized as similar to V. petrophila, but with only 4 1/2 instead of 5-5 1/2 whorls in shells of the same size, slightly wider umbilicus, less embracing and therefore less deeply lunate aperture and usually pinkish instead of whitish-corneous color. V. rhoadsi is a smaller shell with decidedly narrower umbilicus.
V. petrophila is not known to occur in the Great Smoky Mountains. Judging from specimens taken by Mr. Clapp and myself at Knoxville, Tenn., and part of the original lot received from Bland, as well as other specimens collected by Ferriss and Sargent at Burnside, Ky., that species is very constant in characters. V. p. pentadelphia seems equally constant in the considerable number I have now seen, collected by Mrs. Andrews and the members of our party of 1899. It is the memory of this journey of five conchologists which the name seeks to perpetuate.