2i6 Rhodora [November 



fruit, which were carefully studied the following season, presented 

 the same intermediate characters; being greenish in general color 

 like the one parent, but showing in varying degrees blotches and 

 dots of purple like the other parent. I have again watched the 

 plants, in their wild state and under cultivation, during the past 

 season, and in all their stages of growth they have presented no 

 characters not found in one or the other of the associated species, 

 with one exception — the plants were nearly sterile. The capsules 

 contained on the average only one eighth the normal number of 

 seeds ; though along with these seeds could be seen on each of the 

 three valves from ten to tifteen aborted ovules. 



Quite similar plants were discovered in August, 1903, in a rocky 

 pasture near the village of Middlebury. The pasture has been in 

 use for over a century ; but the thin uneven soil of the ledges has 

 never been plowed, and is more or less overgrown with weeds and 

 shrubs. For a stretch of a hundred rods along this tract are to be 

 seen colonies of V. scptentrionalis and of V.fimbriatula growing inter- 

 mingled. With them are found twenty or thirty plants that are so 

 distinct from either that by the leaf or the flower they can be told at 

 a distance ; and yet on examination they are seen to be exactly inter- 

 mediate. In the late summer they produce numerous cleistogamous 

 flowers and fruit, but nine-tenths of the ovules remain unfertilized. 

 One of these plants is figured in plate 58, in which may be seen the 

 intermediate character of the leaf, and the dwarfed, almost sterile, 

 condition of the capsule as compared with the parent capsules. 



The hybrid has also turned up in two other stations in the vicinity 

 of Middlebury. I have noted also the following dried specimens, 

 which I regard as identical with the Vermont plants : — " Sandy 

 open woods," Orono, Me., July 3, 1897 {M. L. Fernald, N. E. Bot. 

 Club Hb.), June 4, 1898, no. 2256, and Sept. 5 & 16, 1898, no. 2706 

 (Gray Hb.) ; " Dry open woods," Cape Elizabeth, Me., May 1 1, 1902 

 {M. L. Fernald, Gray Hb.), in both stations the parent forms also 

 were found; "Dry open hillsides near Gap Mt.," Jaffrey, N. H., 

 June 13, 1898 (B. L. Robinson, no. 658, N. E. Club Hb.) ; ^' Glade 

 in dry pine woods," Seabrook, N. H., May 29 & July 2, 1899 {A. A. 

 Eaton, Nat'l Hb.) ; near Winchendon, Mass., Sept. 3, 1895 ( Nat'l 

 Hb.), V. fimhriattila is on the same sheet; " Dry soil, pine woods," 

 Amesbury, Mass., June 24, 1899 {A. A. Eaton, Nat'l Hb.), V. sep- 

 tentrionalis was collected by him at same time and place. 



