15° Rhodora [July 



essentially uninterrupted mountain chain conditions under which they 

 could thrive even in equatorial regions ; and among the higher 

 mountains of Mexico, Central America, and the Andes of western 

 South America they still occur in isolated areas just as they do more 

 abundantly on our own New England mountains and coast. Thus it 

 is possible to account for the presence of Cystopteris fragilis and 

 /'/ileum alpinum at an altitude of 12000 feet on Mt. Orizaba in south- 

 ern Mexico ; 1 of Carex capitata in meadows of the Sierra Madre 

 in Chihuahua ; of Sagina procumbcns among the mountains of Chili ; * 

 of Tfisetum subspicatum in the Andes of Peru and at the Straits of 

 Magellan ; of Montia f on tana, Draba ineaua, Primula farinosa, J.yeopo- 

 diuni Selago, Carex magellantca, Cerastium arvense % var. fuegianum 

 (recently identified with a Rocky Mt. plant — see Hollick & Britton, 

 Bull. Torr. Club, xiv. 50) from the Straits of Magellan, the Falkland 

 Islands or adjacent regions; 3 and the many other boreal and arctic 

 plants recorded by Hooker, Gay, and others from extra-tropical South 

 America. 



The discovery of limpet rum nigrum, var. andinum in New England, 

 like that of Cerastium arvo/se, var. fuegianum in the Rocky Mts., 

 simply adds, then, one more to this most interesting list of unexpected 

 identities. 



As now understood by the writer the characters and American 

 distribution of the two Crowberries is as follows: — 



Empitrum nigrum, L. Spec. 1022 (1753). Young branchlets 

 glabrous or at most pulverulent-roughened : berries usually black, 

 rarely reddish when mature. — Greenland and Arctic America, south 

 10 the Gulf of St. Lawrence and along the coast to Penobscot Bay, 

 Maine, on the higher mountains to Maine, Katahdin ( Thurber, 

 etc.), Saddleback (C. H. Knowlton 6- M. Z. Fernald) , and Bald- 

 pate, Grafton {/. A. Allen) ; New Hampshire, Mt. Washington 

 {Boott, etc.), Mt. Clay and Mt. Lafayette (F. F. Williams) ; Ver- 

 mont, Mt. Mansfield {Eggleston, etc.); New York, Whiteface 

 {A'oh'lee, Wiegand & Hastings) ; Lake Superior (Houghton) ; 

 Washington, Mt. Rainier {E. C. Smith, etc.) ; Oregon, seashore 

 bluffs, Bandon {Howell). 



K. nigrum, var. andinum, DC. Prodr. xvi. pt. r. 26 (1869). 

 branchlets and young leaves tomentose or lanate ; berries generally 

 reddish or plum-colored. — Newfoundland, Bay of Islands (Wag- 



1 See Hemsl. Biol. Cent -Am. Hot. iv. 296. 297. 



2 Gay, Fl. Chil. i. 2S3. 



:! See Hook. Antarctic Fl. 



