202 Rhodora [Septbmbbb 



Tii the Gray Manual (1908) the range given is "s. N.E. to Wise, 

 and s.w., cultivated and eseaped eastw." In Iiis Report on the Her- 

 baceous Plants of Massachusetts (1840) the Rev. Chester Dewey 

 describes and mentions Cimicifuga racemosa, hut only as "cultivated 



in the gardens of the Shakers." 



It is natural that a plant so conspicuous and ornamental should 

 be transplanted into gardens and thence in time again have run wild 

 beyond its normal range. Two cxtralimital collections in the her- 

 barium of the New England Botanical Club are probably of this 

 class, viz: one by Parlin, Sept. (>, 1899, from "N. Berwick, Me.; 

 growing in an orchard spreading from planted roots;" the other by 

 John Murdoch, -Jr., July 22, 1913, from " Bernardston, Mass., woods 

 in E. part of town." A collection by II. Hoffmann from New Marl- 

 boro, Mass., a town adjoining Sheffield, and also on the Connecticut 

 state line, may be indigenous, though found "persisting for years 

 under a hedge-row." Bernardston, on the other hand, is in Franklin 

 County, sixty miles northeast of Sheffield, on the Vermont line. 

 Mr. Murdoch died in 1915, and his herbarium, with a duplicate 

 plant and label, is now in the Field Museum of Natural History at 

 Chicago. 



In the catalogue of plants growing without cultivation in the 

 vicinity of Amherst College, published by Prof. Edward Hitchcock 

 in 1S29, our plant is recorded, on his authority, from Goshen, Mass.; 

 and this record is repeated as late as 1913 by Prof. George E. Stone 

 of the Massachusetts Agricultural College at Amherst in his "List 

 of Plants growing without cultivation in Franklin, Hampshire and 

 Hampden Counties." Goshen is a small town in Hampshire County, 

 southwest of Bernardston. Seeking to confirm so definite, though 

 ancient a record as this 1 wrote to Prof. Alfred S. Goodale, who 

 kindly reported to me that "a careful inspection of our plant collec- 

 tion at Amherst College fails to show a specimen from our vicinity. 

 I have also examined what is left of Hitchcock's own collection and 

 if it was originally there, it has disappeared from it." He adds, 

 "I have not collected it myself in this region." 



In the brief search which I have made, with results stated above, 

 there is little to show the presence of the "Bugbane" or "Black 

 Snakeroot" as a native of Massachusetts, except the stations at 

 Sheffield. Possibly however, this note may be productive of infor. 



