Rhodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
No. 168. 
Vol. 14. December, 1912. 
ALCHEMILLA ALPINA AND A. VULGARIS IN NORTH 
AMERICA. 
M. L. FERNALD AND K. M. WIEGAND. 
Tur first record of an indigenous Alchemilla in northeastern North 
America was by Pursh who in his Flora Americae Septentrionalis 
(1814) reported A. alpina “On the peaks of high mountains in Ver- 
mont and New Hampshire,"! with, however, the qualifying and 
somewhat characteristic statement: “Whether the American species 
is the true A. alpina or not, I am not able to determine, as I am at 
present in want of specimens to compare them; but the plate in the 
Flora Danica represents the American plant fully, as far as recollection 
can decide." In the Flora of North America Torrey & Gray gave A. 
alpina from “Greenland: also on the summits of the White Moun- 
tains, New Hampshire, and Green Mountains, Vermont, according to 
Pursh; but this is extremely doubtful.” ? In the first edition of the 
Manual, after citing the plant from New Hampshire and Vermont on 
the authority of Pursh, Asa Gray added: "but no one else has found 
the plant in the country." ? To the second edition of the Manual 
A. alpina was not definitely admitted, but Gray made the note: 
“A. ALPINA, L., is said by Pursh to grow on the Green and White 
Mountains, New England; but there is most probably some mistake 
about it." * This disposition of the case was maintained through the 
fifth edition; and in the sixth and seventh editions, since Pursh's 
record had remained unverified, the species was not even mentioned. 
1 Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. 112 (1814). 
1 Torr. & Gray Fl. I. 432 (1840). 
! Gray, Man. 119 (1848). 
‘Gray, Man. ed. 2, 115 (1856). 
