1903] Fernald, — Andromeda Polifolia and A. glaucophylla 67 
ANDROMEDA POLIFOLIA AND A. GLAUCOPHYLLA. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
THE attractive Bog Rosemary of our American swamps and wet 
shores is familiar to all northern botanists as Andromeda Polifolia. 
Under this name alone it has passed for more than half a century, 
its supposed range including all boreal America, Europe and Asia; 
and one observer of more than ordinary keenness has even ventured 
the statement that “this species, although so widely distributed, 
retains its form without variation in all latitudes”! from southern 
Canada to the Arctic Sea. Yet if we examine the material which 
is passing in America as Andromeda Polifolia we shall find that in 
general the plant of temperate bogs—from central Labrador to 
Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Lake Winnipeg — differs in nearly 
every feature from the plant of arctic Europe, Asia, and America 
(northern Labrador to Alaska). 
True Andromeda Polifolia, described by Linnaeus as growing “in 
Europae /rigidioris paludibus turfosis”’ and now known to extend across 
northern Asia and Arctic America, in general resembles the common 
shrub of New England and Canadian bogs, and it is not surprising 
that the two should have been confused. A. Po//fo/ia has the leaves 
covered beneath, at least when young, with a glaucous bloom, which, 
however, may be quite deciduous in the older leaves; its young 
shoots are green and not glaucous; its scaly terminal buds are 
brownish but rarely glaucous, and from them arise the few flowers 
nodding singly at the tips of slender nearly straight pedicels often 
three or four times their length; the calyx-lobes are either pale or 
red-tinged ; and the brown or reddish capsule is subglobose or obo- 
void, usually higher than broad. This plant, found ordinarily in the 
arctic regions, extends south in Europe to the Venetian Alps, in east- 
ern Asia to Japan, and in America to Sitka, Lake Huron, and possi- 
bly to the mountains of New York. 
The commoner plant of eastern America — from latitude 55° in 
Labrador to Lake Winnipeg, Minnesota and Pennsylvania — resem- 
bles A. Polifolia in foliage, but the under surface of the leaf, instead 
of bearing a deciduous paint-like glaucous coat, is tomentulose or 
! Macoun, Cat. Can. Pl. i. 297. 
