36 _ -Rhodora 
IV. EPILOBIUM ALPINUM AND ITS ALLIES IN NORTHEASTERN 
AMERICA. 
The name Epilobium alpinum has been so variously used that by 
some authors, such as Haussknecht, it has been felt wise to discard 
it entirely as a source of perpetual confusion. Trelease,! however, 
because of the presence among the mixed specimens called E. alpinum 
in the Linnean herbarium of typical EF. lactiflorum Hausskn., felt that 
the doctrine of residues should be applied and that, all the other 
elements of the mixed Linnean species having been long ago removed, 
the residual E. lactiflorum should be called E. alpinum. On the other 
hand, Mr. A. H. Moore ? has recently argued at length that the name 
E. alpinum must be applied to E. Hornemanni Reichenbach. Mr. 
Moore makes at least a fairly clear point that E. alpinum rested upon 
plants with pink flowers, and it is certainly reasonably definite that 
Linnaeus had in mind both the pink-flowered plants subsequently 
described as E. anagallidifolium Lam. and E. alsinefolium Vill. But 
the remainder of Moore’s argument, that E. Hornemanni Reichenb. 
must be called E. alpinum, is less convincing and in view, of the great 
difficulty of this question and the lack of finality in some of Moore’s 
arguments, it does not seem wise to drop the definite name E. Horne- 
manni and to take up for it the obscure and variously interpreted name, 
E. alpinum. E. Hornemanni is an arctic-alpine species known in 
Europe only from Norway and Sweden. Yet Moore urges that it is 
the true Linnean E. alpinum, and supports his argument in part by 
stating that “this was apparently the older view,” citing in his evi- 
dence “Sowerby’s English Botany, xxvii. pl. 2001 (1819), for example.” 
In citing Sowerby’s plate of E. alpinum as representing E. Hornemanni, 
Moore, however, apparently overlooks the pertinent fact that E. 
Hornemanni is unknown from Great Britain. He also infers that 
Haller’s Epilobium foliis ellipticis, obtuse lanceolatis from Switzerland 
is E. Hornemanni; in this inference also failing to give great weight to 
the fact that E. Hornemanni does not occur south of Scandinavia. 
For similar reasons Scheuchzer’s Chamaenerium alpinum alsines foliis 
from Switzerland, the reference given by Linnaeus from which the 
name-bringing adjective alpinum seems to have been derived, cannot 
be identified with the Scandinavian E. Hornemanni. 
1 Trel., Mo. Bot. Gard. 2d Ann. Rep. 108 (1891). 
2 RHODORA, xi. 144-147 (1909). 
