210 
bins, Oakes ; McCall’s Ferry, on the Susquehanna, York Co., Pa., 
Porter; Great Falls of the Potomac, Vasey. 
This is the type of the species according to Dr. Gray, and it 
agrees with the description in Pursh’s Flora. In Northern New 
England and New York, and further northward and westward, in 
the Rocky Mountains and beyond, occur forms with broader 
leaves, smaller heads of flowers and shorter and more obtuse invo- 
lucral scales, which have been placed under S. humilis. But they 
vary much, and their relations to the type must be left to future 
investigation. 
The variety microcaphala, Porter (BULLETIN xix. 129), which 
was founded on a single specimen, proves to be on closer inspection 
a remarkable form of S. nemoralis, Ait. 
Solidago alpestris, Wald. and Kit. (S. Virgaurea, L., var. al- 
pestris (Koch), L. and var. alpina, Bigelow).—Alpine; stem glabrous 
or somewhat pubescent, 3-10 inches high, in the larger forms 
often bent, angular; radical leaves obovate, appressed-serrate 
above the middle, obtuse or acute, cauline oblanceolate or spatu- 
late, of equal size, or 2 or 3 of the uppermost larger, longer and 
spreading, narrowed toward the base, obtuse or acute, sparingly 
serrate, distant; inflorescence a short raceme or thyrse with clus- 
ters of a few heads in the axils of the long upper leaves; heads 3- 
4 lines high; scales of the involucre acute; rays variable in length 
and breadth; achenes pubescent. (Plate CLIV.) 
Summits of Mt. Katahdin, Me., the White Mountains, N. H., 
and Mt. Marcy (5 300 ft.) and Mt. McIntyre (5100 it.) Nes 
At the highest elevations dwarfing obscures some of its charac- 
ters, but the abundance of fine specimens obtained last summer 
by Dr. Britton in the Adirondacks exhibits the species in its full- 
est development, and on comparing them with S. alpestris from 
the Swiss and Carpathian Alps of Europe and the Altai Moun- 
tains of Asia the differences are so slight that the two must be re- 
garded as identical. And such a conclusion ought to cause no 
surprise, when we consider the notable company of Old World 
alpines which occupy the same mountain-tops. This only adds 
one more to the number. From the polymorphous S. Virgaurea 
of Linnzus, spread over Europe at lower altitudes, the divergence 
is so wide that it may well be counted a good species. Koch 
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