56 Rhodora [March 



to twelve feet high ; lower surfaces of the leaves, calyx and pedicels 

 tomentose ; fruit globose or depressed, bright red, two or three lines 

 in diameter ; growing in swamps and wet woods. Gray gives it as 

 common from Nova Scotia to Florida. It grows at my Westminster 

 station on dry, rocky knolls scattered over a large area of poor, broken 

 woodland, but not in the swampy or moist places. The fruit was not 

 fairly ripe and red till the middle of September, and later it turned 

 black. It was much smaller than that of the Black Chokeberry, which 

 grew here also, and six weeks later. It will be noticed that in Ver- 

 mont it is not common and does not in this case grow in swamps 

 and wet places. 



I have watched it at a station in Walpole, New Hampshire, also. 

 Here it grew in a moist place, but the fruit had only a mere tinge of 

 red and that on only a small part of the berries. At both these sta- 

 tions the fruit was globose-depressed like an apple. But on Septem- 

 ber 21, 1901, I found a Walpole station on Drewsville Plain so often 

 mentioned in Mr. Fernald's article in Rhodora, iii. 232. It was 

 near " Aunt l'hilae's " pond, and the plants were from six to ten feet 

 high, but the fruit was as large as that of the Black Chokeberry, 

 elongated-globose like it and as black, plump and shining. I sent 

 specimens to Mr. Fernald and he thought we must call them P. arbu- 

 tifolia. At all three stations the woolly condition of the underside of 

 the leaves, of the calyx and the pedicels was the same and continued 

 throughout the season. 



The Black Chokeberry is described in the Illustrated Flora as 

 having the underside of the leaves, pedicels and calyx glabrous; 

 fruit globose or oval, nearly black or purplish black, three or four 

 lines in diameter; growing in swamps and low woods or sometimes 

 in drier situations. Gray gives it as having black fruit, and Wood as 

 growing in swamps, and from two to five feet high. I have seldom 

 seen it in a swamp or wet place. It is often five or six feet high 

 though generally it is shorter. It often grows with Huckleberries 

 and is generally supposed or said to be poisonous. Some of its com- 

 mon names are expressive if not polite. I have not found it astrin- 

 gent as the floras give it, but flat and tasteless. 



I found it very abundant in Stratton, Vt., on the historic ground 

 where Daniel Webster addressed the famous gathering of the Whigs 

 of Southern Vermont in 1840. Many specimens were bright-red but 

 otherwise normal, and none grew in damp places. 



