1923] Fernald,—Empetrum nigrum, f. purpureum 83 
in Dumortier's plant, the specific name flaccida would become avail- 
able; otherwise some other choice would have to be made. 
According to our present knowledge the true B. tricrenata is largely 
restricted in eastern. North America to the higher mountains of 
Quebec and New England. It is usually replaced at lower altitudes 
by a species in which the caducous habit of the leaves is even better 
marked than in the European “ Pleuroschisma tricrenatum var. 
implexum." An account of this species follows. 
(To be continued.) 
EMPETRUM NIGRUM L., forma purpureum (Raf.), n. comb. E, 
purpureum. Raf. New Fl. pt. iii. 50 (1836) as to description. E. 
rubrum Durand, Proc. Acad. Sci. Phila. (1863) 95, not Vahl. E. 
nigrum, var. purpureum (Raf.) DC. Prodr. xvi. pt. 1: 26 (1869); 
Simmons, Vasc. Pl. Ellesmerel. 43 (1906); Fernald & Wiegand, 
Ruopora, xv. 212 (1913). 
As pointed out by Professor Wiegand and me in 1913 there has 
always been great doubt as to what Rafinesque had from Labrador 
as his basis for E. purpureum. His description called for E. nigrum 
with purple fruit, but we had never met such a plant. On July 22, 
1922, however, while exploring the almost unknown region of Mt. 
Logan in Matane County, Quebec, Professor A. S. Pease and I found 
that the Empetrum nigrum on bare hornblende-schist ledges near 
the summit (about 1100 m.) of Mt. Fortin' had the ripe berries 
purple. This shrub, the first I had met agreeing with Rafinesque’s 
account, was clearly E. nigrum in all characters except that its berries 
were not black. It was obviously only a color-form.—M. L. FERNALD, 
Gray Herbarium. 
1 Mr. Fortin is the bare-topped mountain to the northeast of the main ridge of 
the Mt. Logan range aud separated from Mt. Logan by a great basin, through which 
flows Ouillet Brook, and at the east or head of the basin by a pass with an elevation 
of about 3000 feet where are found a small sphagnum-carpeted poud (Dry Ponp of 
our field notes), which is a source of Ouillet Brook, and to the east a small spring-fed 
lake which empties to the south around the abrupt eastern end of Mt. Logan. We 
estimated the summit of Mt. Fortin at about 3600 feet (1100 m.). We were glad to 
associate with it the name of our guide, M. Joseph Fortin of Ste. Anne des Monts, 
who, with M. Samuel Coté and other guides, had accompanied Professor J. F. Collins 
and me to Mts. Albert and Tabletop in 1905 and 1906, and who had guided Professor 
A. P. Coleman in the Shickshock Mts. in 1918 (see Coleman, Physiography and Glacial 
Geology of Gaspe Peninsula, Quebec.—Canad. Dept. Mines, Geol. Surv. Bull. No. 34: 
30 (1922) ). 
