22 Rhodora [FEBRUARY 
with bright red and more juicy fruit; the other, having a dark 
purplish-black berry, of more fleshy consistence, and a stronger peculiar 
flavor. Both are eaten in the autumn; and, though not equal to 
some of the other native fruits, are not unpleasant. The two kinds are 
exactly alike in foliage."! In 1884, Professor John Macoun wrote: 
“Both Hooker and Gray state that the berries of this species are 
black, on the contrary, those on specimens obtained on Anticosti and 
the Rocky Mountains [of Canada] are bright red.”? In 1901, Britton 
& Rydberg, in an enumeration of plants from Yukon, after listing 
specimens (as Mairania alpina) add: “The red-fruited form collected 
also by Tarleton below Selwyn River";? in 1902, Miss Eastwood, 
enumerating the plants of Nome City, Alaska, described the material 
as having “leaves thin, deciduous,... surface smooth. . . fruit a red, 
juicy berry” * and added the comment: “The berries which were col- 
lected and preserved in formalin may not be ripe. According to the 
descriptions they are black when ripe"; in 1907, Miss Farr, in her 
Catalogue of the Flora of the Canadian Rocky Mountains and the 
Selkirk Range, after listing stations at Banff, on Mt. Sulphur, at 
Field and in the Yoho Valley, said: “The drupes are a bright, clear 
red in color"; and in the same year Mr. Stewardson Brown, in his 
Alpine Flora of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, describes the shrub 
(as Mairania alpina) as having “leaves thin. . .berry bright scarlet.’ 
But through all this period the scarlet-fruited plant, treated merely 
as a color-form of the polar Arctostaphylos alpina, received no name. 
Very recently, however, in the enumeration of woody plants from west- 
ern China, Plantae Wilsonianae, Rehder & Wilson have set off the 
shrub as Arctous alpina, var. rubra,’ distinguished in the diagnosis 
merely by its red fruit, but with a supplementary note that “the 
leaves of the red fruited variety, both in the Asiatic and American 
specimens, are thinner and larger, while those of the typical form are 
smaller and of firmer texture."5 The specimens cited by them are the 
! Richardson, Arctic Searching Expedition, 433 (1852). 
? Macoun, Cat. i. 294 (1884). 
? Britton & Rydberg, Bull. N. Y. Bot. Gard. ii. 179 (1901). 
4 Eastwood, Bot. Gaz. xxxiii. 209 (1902). 
5 Farr, Contrib. Bot. Lab. Univ. Pa. iii. No. 1, 61 (1907). 
* S. Brown, Alp. Fl. Can. Rocky Mts. 214, 215 (1907). 
Rehder & Wilson treat the name Arctous as masculine but Niedenzu, who first took 
up the name (originally coined without explanation of its origin by Gray for a section 
of Arctostaphylos) for the genus, treated it as feminine, and it seems proper in such a 
case to follow the decision of Niedenzu. 
8 Rehder & Wilson, Pl. Wils. pt. iii. 556, 557 (1913). 
