134 



Rhodora l Jt 



Polygonum acadicnse Fernald, originally described from Nova Scotia 

 but subsequently found to be a characteristic species of the Baltic. 1 



It was close work, after reaching Truro at 9 P. M., to get our 

 collections into papers and be up and ready for a train leaving soon 

 after 6; but we had some good areas noted which required the use of 

 local, early-morning trains. Near Folleigh Lake the Intercolonial 

 (now Canadian National) crosses a high gap in the Cobequid Hills 

 where the traveller is invariably roused to enthusiasm as he looks 

 down the steep slope to the beautiful Wentworth Valley and for 

 several miles notes the unspoiled grandeur of the rich, hardwood 

 forest, one of the few stands of virgin hardwood in the Maritime 

 Provinces. It seemed worth while to get a good sample of the flora 

 of a hardwood mountain-slope, so "the boys," Bean, White and 

 Under, were detailed to spend the day there. Pease and Long, 

 having spent the preceding day in a hopeless barren, had earned the 

 novel assignment for the day, the calcareous valley of 5-Mile River 

 with its great, fantastic white cliffs of gypsum. To be sure, they had 

 to get up by 5 o'clock and their return train would not get them 

 back until after dark and long after supper-time. But what of that! 



Bissell and I were quite happy to try our luck on the shores of 

 Shubenacadie Grand Lake, for somewhere on those 20 miles of shore 

 Mrs. Britton had found growing "among the rhizomes of Osm inula 

 rcgalh," 2 Schizaea and we vaguely hoped that the short time allowed 

 us by the rather unaccommodating train-schedule would suffice to 

 give us a glimpse of the plant in situ. As we walked down to the 

 shore from Grand Lake station we found a common New England 

 bullrush, which we had not seen in Nova Scotia, Seirpua atrovirens, 

 var. georgianus 3 and thickets of Hobble-bush, Viburnum ahufolium, 

 and other typical shrubs of the Canadian forest. The shore was 

 composed of slaty and silicious ledges and cobble, where Xyris 

 caroliniana, Rynchospora capitcllata (Michx.) Vahl (R. glomerata of 

 the Northern States), 4 Sisyrinchium gramincum, and other coastal 



'See Fernald, Botanisk Tiddakrift, xxxiv. 25;} (1916); Ostenfeld, ibid, 254; Fer- 

 nald, Am. Journ. Bot. v. 229 (1918). 



- Gray, Bot. Oaz. v. 4 (1880). 



3 Scihpu8 atrovirens Muhl., var. georgianus (Harper), n. comb. 5. Georgianus 

 Harper, Bull. Torr. Bot, CI. xxvii. 881, t. 22 (1900). 



Since this was first noted (Rhodora, viii. 168) in 1906 as a common plant of the 

 Northeast, repeated attempts to keep it apart from S. atrovirens have shown that it 

 is hardly a species, but rather a fairly pronounced variety. 



4 See Blake, Rhodora, xx. 28 (1918). 



