1900] Fernald, — The bilberries of New England 187 
THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE BILBERRIES IN NEW 
ENGLAND. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
WHILE walking late in June in open pine woods near York Vil- 
lage, Maine, the writer was greatly surprised to find, among low juni- 
pers and other shrubs, a patch of dwarf bilberry, Vaccinium «aes, i- 
tosum. The bushes, somewhat hidden by juniper, arrow-wood ( Vi- 
burnum dentatum), and black cherry (Prunus serotina), covered an 
area about twelve feet square, and were fruiting abundantly. Little 
time was devoted to further search, and no other colonies of the plant 
were seen; but the uniform character of the large tract of woods 
suggests that the plant may not be restricted to the small area noted. 
The special interest of this recently discovered colony at York 
lies not alone in the fact that this is the southernmost known station 
for the plant in eastern America, but chiefly in the striking circum- 
stance that, as ordinarily known to New England botanists, Vac- 
cinium caespitosum is a plant of the highest alpine summits. On the 
mountains, furthermore, the dwarf bilberry is not, like the related 
V. uliginosum, of general distribution. While the latter abounds 
everywhere above timber-line on the New England and Canadian 
mountains, the former (V. caespitosum) is generally confined to 
extremely limited areas near the summits of a few peaks. In the 
Quebec mountains it is known only at the summit of Mt. Albert in 
Gaspé; on the highest peaks of New Brunswick 7. uliginosum alone 
is found; as a mountain-plant in Maine V. caespitosum is known only 
from two peaks, — Ktaadn, and at the pinnacle (4,450 feet) on Sad- 
dleback, near Rangeley Lake; in the White Mountains it occurs 
on the summits of Washington, Monroe, Moosilauke, and probably 
Lafayette, but it is rare or unknown on the other peaks; in Vermont 
it is found as an alpine species on Mt. Mansfield ; and in the Adiron- 
dacks it occurs on the summits of Mts. Marcy and Whiteface. 
Growing thus with Déapensia lapponica and other arctic-alpine 
species upon the highest peaks of northern New England, New York, 
and Canada, Vaccinium caespitosum would naturally be expected, like 
them, in arctic and subarctic portions of eastern America. Although 
it is said in the Synoptical Flora to grow on Hudson Bay, no au- 
thentic record of it can be found from north of Hamilton river (lati- 
tude 53?-54? N.); and recent explorers have seen it on the Labrador 
