536 
The type will be deposited in the Herbarium of the New York 
Botanical Garden. 
A comparative histological study of Asarum reflexum and Asa- 
rum Canadense has been undertaken by Dr. Albert Schneider, now 
ot Northwestern University, the results of which will shortly be pub- 
lished. Dr. Schneider tells me that his preliminary examination 
shows that the histological elements are structually almost identical 
in the two plants, but that their arrangement and relative abun- 
dance are strikingly different. In A. reflexum the annular and 
spiral vessels are much more numerous than in Canadense, in 
which tracheids predominate. The usual reaction tests for Cana- 
dense meet with a weaker response from reflerum very much as 
with A. Europaeum. Dr. Schneider is of the opinion that the 
new plant should probably be excluded from the Pharmacopaeia 
owing to the apparently deficient medical principle. A careful 
chemical analysis is necessary to decide this. 
The drawings are reduced in engraving to about two-thirds 
natural size. : 
* The proofs of this article came to hand a few days after the receipt of a privately 
printed paper by Mr. W. W. Ashe, entitled ‘The Genus Asaram in Eastern America,” 
in which is described Asarum Canadense acuminatum nov. var. The points of dis- 
tinction indicated for this new variety are ‘‘Calyx-lobes gradually acuminate, longer 
than the tube,”’ Canadense itself being credited with calyx-lobes ‘‘as long as or some- 
what longer that the tube, abruptly. acuminate.”’ 
As already shown in the present paper, the one of our two common eastern plants 
having the longer more gradually acuminate calyx-segments is the authentic Asarum 
Canadense of Linnaeus, and the very plant, in all probability, to which Muhlenberg 
afterwards applied the name acuminatum, now again used by Mr. Ashe. 
There occurs in Minnesota a form of Asarum having very long, slenderly acumi- 
mate calyx-lobes and apparently occupying a position between A. Canadense and A. 
caudatum. Having seen but a single specimen of this plant allusion to it was de- 
ferred until further material should be forthcoming. Minnesota is one of the localities 
named by Mr. Ashe for his new variety, which may very possibly represent a plant not 
found at all farther east. The matter cannot be followed to a conclusion at the present 
time, when this paper goes at once to press. 
