90 Rhodora [May 



SOME ANOMALOUS PLANTS OF TLARELLA AND 

 MITELLA. 



M. L. Ff.rnald. 



The occurrence, at least in the wild state, of inter-generic hybrids 

 is so unusual that the following instances of what seem with little ques- 

 tion to be hybrids between TimrUa cordifolia and species of Miiella 

 are worthy special record and closer observation in the field. 



My attention was recently called to the existence of these plants by 

 the receipt from Mr. J. M. :\Lacoun of a sheet of specimens collected 

 by his father, Professor John Macoun, on rocks in a ravine near 

 Eel River, New Brunswick, on August 29, 1899. The plant which 

 suggested to Professor ^Llcoun the long-lost, and never rediscovered, 

 Mitella prostrata described by INIichaux from I^ake Champlain, is in 

 aspect like a freely stoloniferous plant of M. nuda, in the rounded lobes 

 of the leaves and the very slender stolons inseparable from that plant. 

 Its inflorescences, borne irregularly at the tips of the leafy flagelliform 

 stolons are quite unlike tho.se of M. nuda, but in their short oblong 

 outline suggest the racemes of TiareUa cordifolia. The flowers, too, 

 are structurally similar to those of Tiarella: the jjctaloid calyx free from 

 the subulate capsules wliic-h vary from 1 to 3 and are a})])arently quite 

 empty and inclined to shrivel without enlarging; the petals when pres- 

 ent linear-spatulate and entire or ciliate-margined, rarely exceeding the 

 sepals; the stamens as in TiareUa, and varying from .5 to 10. The 

 stolons bear numerous reddish deeply lacerate stii)ules which some- 

 times subtend normal leaves, and again bear in their axils minute sub- 

 ulate bodies resembling the pistils of the racemose flowers; and in the 

 racemes many of the flowers are subtended by the conspicuous ciliate- 

 fimbriate bracts which are much larger and more freely cleft than the 

 bracts in normal Tiarella. 



From the above description it will be seen that the Eel River plant 

 is aberrant in many regards. With the habit of Mitella nuda, it has 

 flowers which structurally suggest Tiarella cordifolia, though the petals 

 are sometimes ciliate, a character which suggests the fimbriate petals 

 of Miiella. The sterility of the plant, and its eccentric habit of flower- 

 ing from the tips of the stolons at the end of August, instead of in early 

 summer when both Mitella nuda and Tiarella cordifolia are normally 



