94 Rhodora [May 
new one based upon abundant material and correlated with his other 
descriptions, it seems probable that the “dry fruit” of the Sachalin 
Island plant is young fruit, which at that stage is dry in all the varie- 
ties of R. idaeus. 
Var. canadensis has recently been called R. subarcticus (Greene) 
Rydberg and R. carolinianus Rydberg. In treating this variety as two 
species Rydberg placed the emphasis upon the degree to which the 
sepals bear caudate tips; R. carolinianus, restricted by him to the 
mountains of North Carolina, having the “sepals ovate, more than 
1 cm. long, caudate-acuminate, the slender tip from half to fully 
as long as the sepal proper,”! while R. subarcticus, with southern 
limits placed at Nova Scotia and British Columbia and "apparently 
also Nantucket" is said to have “sepals broadly ovate, abruptly 
acuminate... about 6 mm. long.” ? In the key, it is true, the so- 
called new species, R. carolinianus, which is subsequently said to have 
“sepals ovate,” is placed in a section with “Sepals narrowly lanceo- 
late." The definition would thus seem to be loose enough to assure 
the name covering considerable material; but, unfortunately some 
North Carolina specimens show sepals even less than 6 mm. long and 
with very short tips, while the writer has before him many specimens 
from Labrador, Newfoundland, Canada, and New England with 
sepals not only a full em. long, but sometimes even 2-2.5 cm. in length; 
and on some individual branches occur both short-tipped and long- 
appendaged sepals. In fact, in a single New Hampshire “clearing” 
one may collect specimens having sepals with or without caudate 
appendages and of any length he chooses from 5 mm. to 2.3 em. The 
fact is, that this character is extremely variable and not one to use 
unsupported by stronger characters even in varietal separations. 
Rydberg himself recognized this when in his key he included R. 
strigosus under both headings: "Sepals....gradually acuminate” 
and “Sepals....abruptly acuminate.” The ranges for his R. caro- 
linianus and R. subarcticus would seem to preclude the occurrence of 
either between North Carolina and Canada, except "apparently " 
on Nantucket. Both of them, however, i. e. the one variety, occur 
in all the New England states (except possibly Rhode Island), being 
common in some thickets about Boston, occasional on Cape Cod, and 
pushing southward into the Pennsylvania mountains, so that the 
1 Rydberg, N. A. Fl. 1. c. 447 (1913). 
2 Rydberg, N. A. Fl. 1. c. 448 (1913). 
