IRbodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 19. October, 1917. No. 226. 
A NEW ALPINE WILLOW FROM THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
One of the areas in the White Mountains of New Hampshire un- 
known to most botanists is the wet southwest gully of King’s Ravine. 
The dripping rocks of the gully and its high precipitous cliffs have 
proved forbidding to the path-builder, and only the most expert 
climbers have found their way into it. Among the latter, naturally, 
is the indefatigable explorer of Coös County, Professor Arthur Stanley 
Pease, who in July, 1909, discovered! in this gully of King’s Ravine 
the arctic-alpine Taraxacum ceratophorum (Ledeb.) DC. The 
Taraxacum, in immature condition, was collected late in July, and 
in the hope of securing mature material Professor Pease and the 
writer descended King’s Ravine through the southwest gully on 
August 8, 1917. The snow had only just disappeared from many of | 
the banks and the Taraxacum was not found, but of much greater 
interest was a trailing willow which carpeted in great profusion the 
wet mossy banks at altitudes above 1310 m. (4300 feet). The shrub 
was first noticed when we were at an altitude of about 1375 m. (4500 
feet) but it may occur higher up the gully. In the dark lustrous 
green, prominently reticulated veins and closely crenate margins of 
the leaves the shrub at first suggested Salix herbacea L.; but the leaves 
were oblong to narrowly obovate and narrowed at base, not rounded 
to reniform and cordate at base as in S. herbacea, and the coarse woody 
freely forking superficial branches (3-6 mm. thick) trailed often to a 
length of 5 dm. from the central trunk. The shrub was, then, obvi- 
1 Pease, Ruopora, xix. 111 (1917). 
