18 The Ottawa Naturalist. [April 



There are before me two sheets of specimens, both of which 

 were collected one of them fifty years since, the other seventy 

 by the late Mr. John Ball, and which must be understood to 

 represent the plant of Lloyd, of Bobart and of Ray. One of the 

 sheets Mr. Ball gathered in 1859 on mountains near Llanberis, 

 North Wales the very region whence T. alpinum was first 

 obtained the other is from Glen Isla, Forfarshire, Scotland. 

 In the interests of the future investigation of the alpine meadow- 

 rue in America I shall here give a precise account of these two 

 sheets of British and indubitably typical specimens. Those from 

 Wales are in flower only, those from Scotland in fruit. 



Plants at early flowering H to 2|- inches high, the leaves 

 themselves 1 to 1\ inches long, normally of 11 leaflets, these 

 broad at base and with little suggestion of the cunate, the whole 

 leaflet broader than long, the terminals 3-lobed, the laterals 

 5-lobed, all lobes obtuse; upper face dark-green and polished, 

 lower face glaucous, but between the veins only, the veins them- 

 selves, fine, delicate, not at all prominent, deep-green, in no 

 degree glaucous ; fruiting pedicels long, filiform, firmly ascending, 

 but abruptly curved downwards just under the head of carpels. 



Nothing well answering to the Welsh and typical Thalictrum 

 alpinum is knowm to occur on our side of the Atlantic; yet in 

 North America, north of the British Boundary, there exist at 

 least three notably different plants, all of which are in so far at 

 agreement with genuine T. alpinum as to admit of their being 

 treated as varieties of it, if not indeed as sub-species. Their 

 proposed names, and the peculiar marks of each, are subjoined. 



Thalictrum alpinum, var. Gaspense. Plant of twice the 

 size of the type, often 6 or 8 inches high; leaflets normally 11, 

 longer than broad, manifestly cuneate, less deeply lobed, dark- 

 green and lustrous above, glaucous beneath even to the veins 

 and veinlets, these more prominent than in the type, and colored 

 green only during early stages; pedicels filiform, spreading away 

 from the rhachis and curved downward throughout their whole 

 length, never abruptly bent under the fruit; carpels (immature) 

 3 or 4. 



Damp ledges, on the banks of the Grand River, Gaspe Co., 

 Quebec; 30 June and 3 July, 1904, M. L. Fernald. 



Thalictrum alpinum, var. microspermum. Plant very 

 tall, often a foot high; leaflets normally 11, always longer than 

 broad, cuneate, few more than 3-lobed, deep-green and shining 

 above, very white beneath with bloom even to the not very 

 prominent veins and veinlets; pedicels short, firm, even wiry, 

 curved throughout and not at summit only; carpels minute, 

 obliquely oblong-oval, sessile, seemingly one only from each 

 flower. 



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