The Plant World 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF POPULAR BOTANY. 



Vol. 11. SEPTEMBER, 1899. No. 12. 



THE HABITAT OF THE WILD COLUMBINE. 



By E. J. Hill. 



M 



R. POLLARD'S inquiry regarding the habitat of the Wild 

 Columbine led me, before stating my own experience, to look 

 into several handbooks of botany and other publications to 

 learn what disposition had been made of it in this respect. 

 Such accounts may be taken as representing the conditions which im- 

 pressed the different authors and collectors, at least in the districts 

 where they lived, or which they had obtained by the assistance of 

 collaborators. They also substantially cover its whole geographical 



range. 



The successive editions of Gray's Manual and Torrey and Gray's 

 Flora of North America limit it to "rocks." The Synoptical Flora 

 adds an "etc. "to this. Britton and Brown's Illustrated Flora and 

 Chapman's Flora of the Southern States say "rocky woods." Pursh's 

 Flora and Eaton and Wright's Botany give "crevices of rocks." 

 Wood's Classbook states "dry soil, generally on the sunny side of 

 rocks." Bigelow's Florula Bostoniensis mentions "dry hills, rocks 

 and pastures." Coulter's Rocky Mountain Botany says " along sub- 

 alpine rivulets." Rafinesque in his Medical Flora calls it "a beauti- 

 ful native plant adorning our rocks." Darlington's Flora Cestrica has 

 "rocky banks of streams." Barton, in his Flora Philadelphica, writes: 

 " On the high rocks of the Schuylkill and Wissahickon, everywhere 

 common; grows frequently in crevices, where the roots seem to have 

 no earth for their nourishment." The Abbe Provencher {Flore Can- 

 adicnne) gives "rocky and sandy woods and especially in the vicinity 

 of streams." Macoun's Catalogue of Canadian Plants has "rocky 

 hillsides and open woods. " Dudley's Cayuga Flora, ' ' rocky banks and 

 rocks of glens and lake shore ; also in cultivated grass fields, top of 

 Bald Hill." Paine in Plants of Oneida County gives " clefts of rocks, 

 rocky bluffs, and even in sandy soil." Kellerman and Werner's Ohio 



