1913] Fernald and Wiegand,— Empetrum in North America 213 
with the boreal sp. of Europe, and has been followed by all our sub- 
servient botanists except Lapilaye who has blended it with E. rubrum 
of Austral America in his Newfoundland Flora. My specimen is 
from Labrador and has red berries strikingly like those of Phytolacca! 
Those of our Botanists who saw the berries are few, they mostly copy 
Michaux! is there a sp. in boreal America with black berries? My 
sp. is perfectly distinct, the branches are terete smooth but sulcate 
among the leaves, these are only 2 or 3 lines long,” ete. 
Just how Rafinesque’s Empetrum purpureum should be interpreted 
is something of a problem. It is clearly a confusion of different 
elements, for the plant of Michaux and “all our subservient botanists” 
up to Rafinesque’s time was certainly E. nigrum. Michaux’s plant 
has been examined by one of the present writers, it comes from a 
region where E. nigrum abounds, and Michaux’s own note upon find- 
ing it is to the point: “Le 2 Aoust [1792] arrivé à la Malbaye. . Depuis 
le Baye St. Paul, les Eboulements et la Malbaye les Montagnes sont 
formées de terre argilleux sables et Pierres roulées. Le Cap. Tour- 
mente est formé de roches du Quartz. Sur les rochers un peu avant 
d'entrer dans la Baye, se trouve un arbuste rampant, Empetrum 
nigrum, f. touj. vertes, petites, ovales, reflechies,....Baye noire, 
aqueuse, semences 9."! E. rubrum of La Pylaie's Voyage à lisle de 
Terre-Neuve (his Flora mentioned by Rafinesque was never completed), 
as shown by La Pylaie's own collections and by abundant modern 
collections from Newfoundland, could not have been the plant which 
Rafinesque was describing from Labrador; for La Pylaie's Newfound- 
land E. rubrum has the berries bright pink or light coral-red, not 
“purple” or “strikingly like those of Phytolacca!" as emphasized by 
Rafinesque, and La Pylaie's plant has the branches and young foliage 
densely white-tomentose while Rafinesque said of his E. purpureum: 
* the branches are terete smooth." 
After eliminating from Empetrum purpureum the true E. nigrum 
with black fruit of Michaux “and all our Am. botanists” and the E. 
rubrum of La Pylaie, there remains Rafinesque’s description of a 
plant from Labrador with smooth branches and berries “purple” or 
“red... strikingly like those of Phytolacca!” (which are ordinarily 
very dark purple). We are not familiar with such a plant but it is 
possible that it is correctly identified by Simmons with the red-fruited 
E. nigrum of Northwestern Greenland and Ellesmereland. But even 
1 Journal of André Michaux, 1787-1796, ed. C. S. Sargent — Proc. Am. Phil. Soc. 
xxvi., no. 129, 73 (1888). 
