30 Rhodora [FEBRUARY 
In some way the statement has become a fixture in many of the 
American and European descriptions, that the leaves of Arctostaphylos 
(or Arctous) alpina are “thin and deciduous.” But surely such a 
statement would never knowingly be made by anyone who, like the 
writer, has many times tramped over miles of barrens carpeted with 
the Alpine Bearberry and has eaten quarts of its bitter-sweet berries 
in the hope of growing to like them. Arctostaphylos or Arctous alpina 
certainly does not have deciduous leaves! On the contrary they are 
marcescent, losing their freshness during the winter and persisting, 
often for many years, as masses of bleached and alternately dry and 
wet foliage. So persistent are these old leaves, that in collecting the 
shrub for the herbarium it is necessary to tear off a large proportion of 
the old foliage in order to display the branches and the newer shoots. 
That the spick-and-span branches artificially depleted of all old leaves, 
such as one often finds in the herbarium, should lead to an impression 
that the leaves are deciduous is not unnatural, but this post mortem 
and wholly artificial character cannot be maintained as generically 
separating Arctous from Arctostaphylos. 
This observation, that the leaves of Arctostaphylos or Arctous alpina 
are marcescent, not deciduous, is abundantly verified by the state- 
ments of others who have an intimate acquaintance with the growing 
shrub. Thus we find in Koch's Synopsis: “foliis...glabris, basi 
integerrimis ciliatisque marcescentibus”;! in Ledebour’s Flora 
Rossica: "folis...glabris basi integerrimis subciliatis marcescenti- 
bus";? while Blytt in his Norges Flora goes into more detail: "the 
leaves wither in winter and remain withered during the next summer 
(Bladene visne om Vinteren og sidde visnede igjen næste Sommer).'? 
In the somewhat less coriaceous or even membranous leaves Arcto- 
staphylos or Arctous alpina certainly differs from all the other members 
of the group, except the red-berried plant described as Arctous alpina, 
var. rubra, and in their glabrous leaf-surfaces these two differ from all 
other species of the group except Arctostaphylos glauca; but the tex- 
ture and degree of pubescence of leaves surely cannot alone differen- 
tiate a genus. 
The other really strong character (on paper) is the statement that 
in Arctostaphylos we have “4-10 seed-like nutlets coherent into a 
'Koch, Syn. ed. 3, pt. 1, 412 (1857). 
*Ledeb. Fl. Ross. ii. 908 (1844-46). 
3Blytt, Norg. Fl. i. 839 (1861). 
