2 32 Rhodora [Dec»m»k« 



coast of Cape Ann, Massachusetts, the Great Lakes, and British 

 Columbia. It occurs also on the islands of Behring Sea, and from 

 Kamtschatka to Japan, in Greenland, and very locally on the moun- 

 tains of Europe; 



True Vaccmium Vitis-Idaca, the Prtisselbeere of German)', Cowberry 

 of England, Lingonris of Sweden, and Tyttcbaer of Denmark and 

 Norway, is a much larger plant than our Mountain Cranberry, the 

 branches sometimes 2 to 2.5 dm. (8 to 10 inches) high, the thinner 

 leaves i.c to 2.7 cm. long, 7 to 16 mm. broad: and the flowers are 

 white or pale pink. 



By European authors the differences between this typical large- 

 leaved form and the small-leaved variety have often been noted, but 

 by American students these distinctive points have been very gener- 

 ally overlooked. In fact. Dr. Gray, following the then established 

 precedent of treating the European and American plants as one, 

 seems to have drawn his description from European specimens for 

 in the first edition of the Manual (1848) the plant is described as 

 M 6'-lo' high," a stature double that ordinarily reached by the Ameri- 

 can form. This statement of the height has been repeated unchal- 

 lenged in the later editions of the Manual, though altered by Dr. 

 Gray in the Synoptical Flora to the more satisfactory "3 inches to a 

 span or more high," thus covering the average height of the Ameri- 

 can and the extreme height of the Kuropean forms. In the most 

 recent exhaustive treatment of the genus Vacaniitm, however, the 

 traditional statement " Plants low (6-10 inches)" ' occurs. Thus for 

 more than a half century, in spite of the modification to "3 inches" 

 made by Dr. Gray in 1878, the unfortunate "6-10 inches" has been 

 forced to serve as an unattainable goal for the lowly plant of our 

 mountains and coast. 



Pursh alone among those who have specially commented on the 

 two extremes has said, "The American plant is more robust than the 

 European, and the leaves are considerably larger," 2 a statement 

 which, in view of the facts, seems quite reversed from the meaning 

 probably intended by its author. By others, however, the larger 

 plant has been consistently treated as the normal and common form 



1 Munson, Me. Agr. Expt Sta. Bull. No. 76, 1 38 (iyoi ). and in Bailey, Cyc. 

 Am. Hort. 1892 (1902). 



2 Pursh, Fl. 289 (1814). 



