19 2 Rhodora L° CTOBER 



to fall into apostumation it mightily defendeth, that no humor or 

 accident shall happen thereunto." ' 



In the earlier floras of eastern America, such as those of Pursh 

 and Bigelow, we find a plant described as Veronica Beccabunga, and 

 under this name the American Brooklime was known until, in 1846, 

 Bentham took up 2 a manuscript name of Schweinitz's and established 

 the American plant as Veronica americana, Schweinitz, J a species 

 which differs from the European V. Beccabunga in its more ascending 

 habit, more pointed leaves, and longer more slender pedicels. 



Since the distinctions between the European plant and its com- 

 moner American representative were pointed out the name, Veronica 

 Beccabunga, has dropped from our literature. It was, therefore, 

 peculiarly interesting to Mr. Emile F. Williams and the writer to 

 find, in August last, the true European Brooklime, V. Beccabunga, 

 thoroughly at home about Quebec. During a two-days' visit in that 

 quaint historic region we drove for some miles both south and north 

 to the scenes most accessible to the transient visitor. While follow- 

 ing in Wolfe's Cove the famous ascent to the Plains of Abraham we 

 were attracted by a Veronica growing perfectly prostrate and repent 

 in the roadside ditch. The plant, with its prostrate and freely 

 branching stems and blunt-oblong or rounded glossy leaves, looked, 

 at first glance, so like a mass of stolons of Mentha piperita that it 

 was only upon closer inspection that we realized that we had the 

 Brooklime of European floras. The same plant was later seen in 

 abundance in the brook which empties over a high fall from Spencer 

 Wood into Wolfe's Cove, and it was noted in roadside brooks and 

 ditches as far southward as we drove, through the village of Sillery. 

 The next day, in driving to Montmorenci, we saw the Brooklime 



'Gerard, I. c. 



* Benth. in DC. Prodr. x 468 (1846). 



3 In the Synoptical Flora Dr. Gray includes V, intermedia, Schweinitz, Am. 

 Jour. Sci. viii. 268 (1824) as a synonym of V. americana. The name V. intermedia, 

 was published by Schweinitz, in a list of the rarer plants of Easton, Pennsylvania, 

 for a plant "commonly called beccabunga." Were it quite clear that Schweinitz 

 referred to the plant subsequently called by him V. americana, the earlier name, 

 V. intermedia, would have to be taken for that plant. But according to Bentham 

 (/. c.) the name, V. Beccabunga, was often used by early American authors for V. 

 Anagallis, and since this species is well known to occur at Easton it is very prob- 

 able that by V. intermedia, Schweinitz referred to V. Anagallis and not to V. 

 americana. 



