96 Rhodora [JUNE 
vanicum Lam., var. angustifolium (Ait.) Gray, Aster radula Ait., var. 
strictus (Pursh) Gray, etc.— but the most conspicuous plant at the 
time of our visit was Gaylussacia dumosa (Andr.) T. € G., forming 
dense depressed shrubs only 1 or 2 decimeters high, closely embedded 
in the Sphagnum, and loaded with beautiful white or pink-tinged 
bells. The distribution of this very distinct Gaylussacia is notable, 
for it occurs in bogs and wet swamps all the way from Newfoundland 
to Louisiana, in New England at least rarely extending far from the 
coast. Yet the plants with which it is associated in the Lubec bog 
and elsewhere in eastern Maine are chiefly polar types which do not 
extend far southward into the temperate areas of eastern Ámerica.” ! 
At the time of writing this note our comparison of the northern 
and.southern specimens of Gaylussacia dumosa, though revealing a 
slight habital difference, showed nothing more tangible by which 
the northern and southern extremes of the species could be separated. 
Later, in a letter Dr. R. M. Harper called attention to the fact that 
in the South G. dumosa, which in the North is a shrub of sphagnum 
bogs, occurs in dry barrens, and a search of literature as well as an 
inspection of herbarium labels emphasizes this fact. Thus Michaux, 
mistaking G. dumosa (Vaccinium dumosum Andrews) for the Linnaean 
eee 
V. frondosum, described it as growing “in pinetis, aridis, a Virginia 
ad Floridam ";? Pursh taking it up as Vaccinium dumosum said that 
it grew ‘‘in dry sandy woods, particularly pine-forests: New Jersey 
to Florida." ? Elliott said it " grows in dry, sandy soils," * and more 
recently Mohr has defined its habitat in Alabama as ''Dry barren 
siliceous soil” ? and its general distribution in the South as ''Rare in 
the mountains, abundant in the dry pine barrens of the coast region." ? 
Chapman, however, gives a slightly different account: ''Low sandy 
pine barrens and swamps," * and though the labels of a very few 
herbarium specimens from North Carolina and Florida read: ''low 
grounds" or ‘‘border of marsh," the great majority of specimens are 
from dry habitats. 
In the more northern coastal states and the Maritime Provinces 
we find the habitat stated as follows. By Jacob Bigelow who took 
the northern plant to be Aiton’s southern Vaccinium hirtellum it was 
found “In the edge of Richards’ pond, Brookline [Massachusetts] "7 
1 Ruopora, xii. 106, 107 (1910). 4 Ell. Sk. Bot. S. Car. and Ga. i. 497 (1821). 
2 Michx. Fl. Bor. Am. i. 230 (1803). 5 Mohr, Plant Life of Alabama, 657 (1901). 
3 Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. i. 285 (1814). 6 Chapm. Fl. 258 (1860). 
7 Bigelow, Fl. Bost. ed. 2, 152 (1824). 
