296 BOTANY, ETC., OF THE 
canus), Great Aspen (Populus grandidentata), frequent. This sometimes 
occurs here with leaves as small as in the common American Aspen, 
P. trepida (surely Michaux's name of tremuloides is inadmissibly bar- 
barous) and some of them approaching those of the latter in shape : 
it appears to me probable that both these presumed species may be 
forms of one and the same tree, differing much in the same way that 
our European Grey Poplar and Abele (P. canescens and P. alba) do 
from each other, which I have long suspected are not truly distinct, 
since I can never find any constant character between them. The 
Beech (Fagus ferruginea), and a species of Birch, were also frequent, 
and on the crest or summit of the mountain a few Pinus Strobus, 
which does not show itself lower down. As under-shrubs I noticed 
Cornus circinatus,* abundant; Cornus stolonifera; Hazel (Corylus 
Americana) ; Crategus, two or three species, one with yellowish fruit ; 
Dieuvilla trifida (D. Canadensis, Muhlenb.), plentiful and in ripe 
fruit, which, in all the specimens I examined, was distinctly 4-celled. 
A species of Sumach was not uncommon here and in the plain below, 
answering to R. glabra in size and smoothness of the leaflets, but the 
young shoots and common petioles were downy. The much larger 
and arborescent Stag’s-horn Sumach (R. fyphina) abounds in the 
neighbourhood of Montreal, and seems on the whole more of a 
northern than-a southern species, as I seldom remarked it prevailing 
to any extent in the middle section of the Union. Of herbaceous 
plants observed on the mountain at this my first and during my second 
visit to Montreal, the lateness of the season prevented me from 
noticing more than” a very limited number. Menispermum Canadense 
was remarked climbing over trees in one or two places, but no fruit 
seen. Amphicarpea monoica trailed frequently over low shrubs. Smilax 
herbacea, common, climbing over bushes, and now exhibiting its 
bunches of bluish-black berries. Polygondtum pubescens? sparingly 
. seen in fruit, the berries large, black, with a bluish glaucous bloom, 
* The American species of Cornus are very imperfectly defined, and difficult 
make out by descriptions. The shrub I take to be the true C. circinatus, an 
which I find a very common species in this neighbourhood and the Lake district, 
is remarkable for its very divaricate branches, roundish ovate opposite leaves, tha 
.. are whitish and finely tomentose beneath, with erect pubescence, stem and branches 
. yellowish-green and warty, the young wood of the same colour, not red, as m 
~ €. stolonifera, the cymes (in fruit) divaricately compound, nearly hemispherical, 
. fruit white, or partially lead-coloured, as in C. stolonifera. 
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