1923] Fernald,—Vaccinium uliginosum and its var. alpinum 23 
Gnaphalium obtusifolium and its varieties may be distinguished as 
follows; 
a. Stem with white, floccose tomentum, not visibly gland- 
MEM A iar eser a rones à RR G. obtusifolium. 
a. Stem glandular, not tomentose, or only slightly so. b 
b. Stem glandular-puberulent ; leaves usually linear or 
linear-lanceolate, 1.8-5.3 cm. long, 1.5-7 mm. wide, 
6-10 times or more longer than wide; involucral 
EE ii dc e rss gs. var. micradenium. 
b. Stem glandular-villous; leaves usually oblong-lanceolate, 
2.5-7 cm. long, 4-13 mm. wide, 4-7 times as long as 
wide; involucral bracts mostly Obtuse.................. var. Helleri. 
Gray HERBARIUM 
VACCINIUM ULIGINOSUM AND ITS VAR. ALPINUM. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
Vaccinium uliginosum L. is commonly treated as a circumpolar 
species which, in America, extends southward to the alpine and 
subalpine regions of New England and New York and bogs of Oregon. 
The plant of arctic-alpine range in North America has often been 
set off on account of its depressed habit and small thick leaves from 
the typical shrub of European bogs but in none of the differentiations 
have any characters been pointed out which seem to be more than 
responses to the exacting summer, and often winter, climatic condi- 
tions under which the plant grows in arctic and arctic-alpine eastern 
America. In comparing the shrub which abounds on the barrens of 
Greenland, Labrador and Newfoundland and the alpine regions of 
Quebec and northern New England with the typical European plant 
a number of points of seemingly real significance come out. In the 
first place the European is usually a larger and more ascending shrub, 
and its flowers and fruits are on slender pedicels 3-10 mm. or more 
long; while the smaller mostly depressed and smaller-leaved shrub of 
arctic-alpine American distribution has the pedicels very short and 
often almost obsolete, ranging from 0.1-3.5 mm. in length. In the 
European plant the horns of the anther are ascending and commonly 
shorter than the two tubules. 'This character is well shown in such 
detailed illustrations as Sturm, Deutschl. Fl. iii. t. 12 (1802), Svensk 
Botanik, v. t. 331 (1807), English Botany, ed. Syme, vi.t. 878 (1873) 
or Hartinger & Dalla Torre, Atlas der Alpenfl. iii. t. 313 (1884). Con- 
