Rhodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 16. February, 1914. No. 182. 
THE ALPINE BEARBERRIES AND THE GENERIC STATUS 
OF ARCTOUS. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
To those who are familiar with the flora of Canada it has long been 
known that there are two shrubs passing as Arctostaphylos alpina; 
one, the typical form of the species, with black or purplish-black 
pulpy strong-flavored berries; the other with more juicy and milder 
scarlet berries. Though not recorded in North America until 1852, 
the red-berried shrub was well described from Siberia as early as 
1769. In his Flora Sibirica, J. G. Gmelin described the shrub from 
three districts, representing the full breadth of Siberia: “in the 
region of the Kutschakou mines among the Verkouturie chain” 
of the Ural Mountains (in northwestern Siberia near the Russian 
border); “on mountain barrens about the Olakminsk fortification” 
(on the Lena River northeast of Lake Baikal); and “in the hills of 
Ochotsk at the mouth of the Marecan River.” These plants were 
lis.ed as Arbutus caulibus procumbentibus, foliis rugosis serratis of 
Linnaeus’s Flora Lapponica, which is the black-berried Arctostaphylos 
alpina; but in his description Gmelin said that the berries are “red... 
with abundance of juice and an insipid taste.”! The first record of 
the scarlet-fruited shrub in North America was apparently by Sir 
John Richardson, who, in the enumeration of the trees and shrubs 
of British America, wrote of the Alpine Bearberry, Arctostaphylos 
alpina (L.) Spreng. (Arbutus alpina L.): "there are two varieties, one 
1''In regionem Kutschakouensis fodinae intra catanem montium Verchoturensium 
et in sterilibus montasis intra Olecmense munimentum, vt et Ochotii ad Marecani 
fluuii ostium in collibus occurrit. Baccas magnas habet, rubras,... succi plenas, 
gustuque fatuas." — J. G. Gmel., Fl. Sib. iv. 119 (1769). 
