i9° 2 J Holt, — Cirsium palustre 217 



to the northward. Owing to its close affinity with Pogonia vertiallata 

 our local botanists have been stimulated to renewed zeal in their 

 attempts to rediscover that. Robbins and Torrey found the latter 

 near Burlington sixty or more years ago and one of Torrey's speci- 

 mens is in our University herbarium, but the exact location of their 

 station was unknown and we feared it was exterminated. The recent 

 search was rewarded by the discovery this autumn by Mr. F. A. Ross 

 of several sterile plants of a Pogonia which appears to be P. verticil- 

 lata. The plants are in an open woodland in the vicinity of the Tor- 

 rey station and possibly, it is the same place. One of our students, 

 Mr. F. G. Helyar has brought us this species from Hinsdale, N. H., 

 opposite Brattleboro, where he reports a colony of the plants, safely 

 secluded. It has not as yet been found in that vicinity on the Ver- 

 mont side of the Connecticut river. 

 University of Vermont. 



Is Cirsium palustre a Native of New Hampshire ? — I recently 

 sent to the Gray Herbarium a thistle which I was unable to identify 

 by the manuals at hand and have learned that the plant is Cirsium 

 palustre, Scop., of Europe. As the plant seems to be unrecorded in 

 America it may interest the readers of Rhodora to know something 

 of the conditions under which it grows. There is a colony of this 

 thistle on Tucker Mountain in this township (East Andover, New 

 Hampshire), in a moist forest tangle at an altitude of about 850 feet 

 above sea level, about two miles from the town and railroad, and well 

 removed from cultivated grounds. I have not yet been able to inves- 

 tigate the extent of this colony which may spread all through the 

 tangle of some 20 acres, but this season I saw about fifty mature 

 plants and the same number of seedlings. The plant is very grace- 

 ful, four to six feet tall, with drooping foliage, narrowly winged stem, 

 and upright inflorescence of small heads. Some of the farmers living 

 nearby think that this thistle has been here a long time. I cannot 

 learn of imported stock, seeds of any kind, or anything in which 

 seeds might have been introduced, having ever been carried upon 

 this mountain. Has it been introduced, or is it a native of our north- 

 ern woods? T should like to hear from others on this matter. — 

 George W. Holt, East Andover, New Hampshire. 



