1900] Fernald, — Two northeastern Thalictrums 231 
to five large leaves and some smaller ones in the inflorescence. The 
rootstock of the plant, furthermore, was slender and elongated, very 
unlike the short thickish caudex of 7 dioicum ; and while the flower- 
ing season of this northern plant was just beginning, the fruit of 7: 
dioicum in southern Maine and Massachusetts was already past ma- 
turity. The plant was obviously distinct from the recognized New 
England species ; and it was pronounced by Professor John Macoun, 
who was in the party, unlike any species known to him in eastern 
Canada. The immature condition of the material, however, rendered 
a final determination of the species impossible. 
During the following September an unsuccessful attempt was made 
by the writer to secure fruit from the Fort Fairfield plants. Some- 
what earlier in September, 1900, à visit was made to the St. John 
valley, where plants very similar in appearance to the Fort Fairfield 
species were seen in abundance in the thicket between the river-beach 
and the high wooded banks. These plants on the St. John were in- 
variably past fruiting, as they were likewise at the original station at 
Fort Fairfield. About two miles from Miss Shaw's station for the plant, 
however, a single specimen, scarcely 4 dm. in height, was found in fine 
fruit. Severe early frosts had injured the plant for herbarium purposes 
so that after the fruit had been gathered the stem and leaves were in- 
advertently tossed into the river. On second thought, however, the 
rootstock was carefully dug and examined, when it proved to be not 
elongated and slender as in the plant for which it had been mistaken, 
but short and thickened, much as in 7: dioicum. Upon returning to the 
Gray Herbarium it was found that the achenes of this plant were un- 
like those of any described species of the genus, and that the smaller 
plant of the Aroostook valley must be a second species unrecognized 
. in our New England flora. 
In Macoun's Catalogue of Canadian plants, and in Fowler's Cata- 
logue of the plants of New Brunswick, numerous stations for Thalie- 
trum diotcum in the St. John valley are cited, and the plant is also re- 
ported from “ flat lands” on the Restigouche, while 7: purpurascens is 
reported from numerous stations in Nova Scotia and from Anticosti. 
An examination of the material in the herbaria of the Canadian Geo- 
logical Survey Department and of the Natural History Society of New 
Brunswick, kindly placed at the disposal of the writer by Professor 
John Macoun and by Mr. Geo. U. Hay, shows thatthese plants are in the 
“main identical with the larger species recently discovered on the Aroos- 
