194 Rhodora [October 



overlooked was detected in the material. While the ordinary whitish- 

 flowered plant of southern New England had the rachis of the slender 

 raceme and the pedicels minutely puberulent with fine gray hairs, 

 these parts in the blue-flowered plant of the north bore longer vis- 

 cid hairs. 



A comparison with European specimens has shown this blue- 

 flowered glandular plant to be well known to Old World botanists 

 who treat it sometimes as a distinct species, sometimes as a variety 

 of Veronica serpyllifolia. The plant was first described in 1794 by 

 Dickson as Veronica humifusa} though it had formerly been included 

 by Lightfoot in his Flora Scotica as V. alpina, 2 but later treated 

 by him'merely as a form of V. serpyllifolia J To Dickson, in 1794, 

 it was known in the Scotch Highlands only "upon very high moun- 

 tains, and under wet shady rocks, where the V. serpyllifolia never 

 occurs." In 1838, Sir William Hooker, whose discriminating eye 

 detected many plants long since overlooked in America, noted the 

 plant as V. serpyllifolia, var. humifusa* from the Rocky Mountains. 

 In 1839, Laestadius described the same plant from Lapland as V. 

 serpyllifolia, var. borcalis, 5 and under this name it was recorded from 

 the Venetian Alps and illustrated by Reichenbach. 8 By Hooker & 

 Arnott the plant is called V. serpyllifolia, var. alpina,' 1 while by 

 Babington, 8 Syme, 9 and some others it has been taken up as a sub- 

 species under the original name of Dickson. 



Since this glandular-hairy blue-flowered plant was originally noted 

 in Maine much herbarium material has been examined and the plant 

 has been watched in the field ; and as a result of this study it seems 

 that, while strongly marked in its extreme form, the plant too often 

 approaches the typical Veronica serpyllifolia to warrant its separation 

 as a distinct species. As a boreal variety, however, the blue-flowered 

 form is certainly well marked in America, and it should be called V. 

 serpyllifolia, var. humifusa, Hooker. In fact, the evidence now at 

 hand indicates that this large-flowered variety is the only indigenous 

 form of V. serpyllifolia in Northeastern America. The true V. serpyl- 



1 Dickson, Trans. Linn. Soc. ii. 288 (1794). 

 * Lightfoot, Fl. Scot. 72. 3 Lightfoot, 1. c. 1 138. 



4 Hook. Fl. Bor.-Am. ii. 101 (1838). a Laest. Nov. Act. Soc. Ups. xi. 211 

 (1839). 6 Ic. Fl. Germ. xx. 44, t. 1718, fig. iv. 



'Hook. & Am. Brit. FL ed. 8, 305 (1S60). 

 8 Man. Brit. Bot. ed. 5, 249 (1862). 9 Engl. Bot. vi. 158, t. 979. 



