1913] Fernald,— Indigenous Varieties of Prunella vulgaris 179 
THE INDIGENOUS VARIETIES OF PRUNELLA VULGARIS 
IN NORTH AMERICA. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
In recent years specimens of Prunella vulgaris L. have been sent to 
the Gray Herbarium by various New England botanists who have 
found the plant growing in lawns or roadsides and have urged that it 
is somewhat different from the common American plant passing as 
P. vulgaris. Upon receipt recently of such a specimen, the writer 
undertook a somewhat detailed examination of Prunella vulgaris. 
It was quickly obvious that most of the American material, the com- 
mon plants from Newfoundland to Alaska, south through the North- 
eastern States, about the Great Lake region, and among the Rocky 
Mountains into Mexico, differed from the European P. vulgaris in 
the outline and proportions of the cauline leaves. 
In the European type the principal cauline leaves (the median ones) 
are of an ovate or ovate-oblong outline and rounded at base, averaging 
fully one-half as broad as long. In North America an apparently 
identical broad-leaved plant occurs, chiefly in lawns and fields of the 
Eastern States, eastern Canada and Newfoundland, where it generally 
appears like an introduced weed. This is the broad-leaved plant 
which has recently been collected in New England lawns and by 
various collectors seen to be somewhat different from the indigenous 
Prunella of the region. 
The clearly indigenous plants, found in open woods, on banks of 
streams and in mountain-meadows, but freely spreading into the 
cleared areas, from Newfoundland to Alaska, south to the Carolina 
' mountains, Kansas, and mountains of Mexico and of southern Cali- 
fornia, have the principal or median cauline leaves narrower than in 
the common European Prunella vulgaris, lanceolate to oblong, and 
gradually tapering or cuneate at base, averaging only one-third as 
broad as long; * and although during the past few decades these Ameri- 
can plants have been passing without comment as P. vulgaris, it is note- 
1 Measurements of 28 specimens of the European plant with the leaves rounded 
at base show the median cauline leaves to vary from # to 2 as broad as long (average 3), 
while 60 specimens of the indigenous American plants with cuneate-based leaves 
show the median leaves to range from + to + (average 1) as broad as long. 
