57 



42 , Note on Populus balsamifera, L. var. candicans, Gray 



At the roadside, about two miles north of the city of Newburgh, on the 



Hudson, there is a remarkable specimen of the ' Balm of Gilead " 

 tree, which from its size, and probably great age, is deserving of 

 being put on record in a botanical journal, and the more so, from 

 the fact that the aged giant has been giving evidence for the last few 

 years that its days are nearly numbered. In regard to this interest- 

 ing tree (from whence a small collection of houses in the vicinity has 

 received the name of Balmville) Mr. Ruttenber, in his History of 

 the Town of Newburgh, gives the following facts: **Mr. Gilbert Wil- 

 liams, now (1875) in his 8oth year, and who became a resident in its 

 vicinity in 1808, relates that when in Nova Scotia (where he resided 

 fornineyearspriorto 1832) he became acquainted with a John Cosman, 

 who was an apprentice to Wm. Bloomei before the Revolution, who 

 stated that while he was an apprentice he had shod horses under it 

 many a time, and that it was a large tree then. Mr. Williams meas- 

 ured the tree in 1832, and its circumference (two feet from the ground) 

 was 15 feet 2 inches. He measured it again in 1868, and found it to 

 be 19 feet 5 inches, showing its growth to have been 4 feet and 3 

 inches in thirty-six years. His own recollection of the tree, added 

 to Cosman's, carries it back at least a hundred years." There are, 

 as might be expected of so notable an object, several traditions as to 

 the origin of this tree. One is that the slip from which it grew was 

 brought from New Jersey by a family of early settlers. Mn Isaac 

 Demott, an aged gentleman, son of one of the first settlers of the 

 locality, and who would be likely to know more about it than any 

 one else, told Mr. Eager, the historian of Orange County, in 1846, 

 that ^'the tree grew there naturally — that when it had grown large 

 enough for a rail, he cut it down to use it for that purpose — that it 

 sprouted from the root, and he let it grow." 



The ''Balm of Gilead " is said by Muhlenberg to grow in New 

 York, but Dr. Torrey, in the Flora of the State, says : " I have 

 not found it indigenous within our limits." W. R- G. 



The typical form of -P. balsamifera occurs on the right shore of 

 the Sacondaga River at Hope Centre, Hamilton Co., N. Y. I saw no 

 large trees there, but there are quite a number of small size in the 

 vicinity of a cabin which has been long unoccupied. They seemed 

 to me to have sprung up spontaneously, perhaps suckers from larger 

 trees that had been cut down to make the clearing. W. H. L. 



43. Botanical News. — In Trimen's Jour7ial of Botany for 

 March, Mr. J. G. Baker begins a Synopsis which is designed to em- 

 brace descriptions of all the known species of Isoetes. In the con- 

 tinuation of his paper "On the Botany of the British Polar Expedi- 

 tion of 1875-6," Mr. Henry C. Hart notes the fact that some plants 

 seem unable to flower in Discovery Bay. Thus Epilobitun latifolium 

 and Polygonum viviparum do not nearly arrive at perfection ; Area- 

 aria Groenlandica, Arnica montana, Saxifraga rivularis^ and Canla- 

 mine pratensis make no effort to flower, while others, such as Saxi- 

 fraga cernua, S, nivalis, S, tricuspidata, and Fesiuca brevifolia bios- 



