THE fl/l^ERlCp BOTpiST. 



Vol. VII. BINGHAxMTON, N. Y., JULY, 1904. NoUBl^ARY 



M3 V YORK 



TWO NEW BLACKBERRIES. botanical 



GARDEN 



BY \V. H. BLANCHARD. 



N 'EARLY all of our botanists have avoided blackberries 

 and are still doing so. TheA^ prefer to take up lines 

 in which they can feel that everything is settled. Very 

 little material has been collected and very little persistent, 

 faithful, patient field work has been done. The writer has 

 dropped the popular work that so many others are follow- 

 ing and is making a determined, continuous and tireless 

 search in this neglected field, but has failed to succeed in 

 stirring up others. The aid of other botanists is hereby 

 recjuested. 



The plants described and named in this article have 

 been watched continuously for three seasons in southern 

 Vermont. They are ver^^ common, very conspicuous, and 

 probabh^ very wide-spread. From the Connecticut River 

 to the western foot of the Green Mountains, and from the 

 Massachusetts line to Ripton, the writer has made their 

 personal acciuaintance. 



Imagine a blackberry about half-way between the 

 needle blackberry {Rubus argutus Link) with its numer- 

 ous prickles, fine and strong as needles, from five to ten to 

 the inch of stem and the plant called Peck's dewberry bj' 

 Rydberg {R. nigricans Rydb. ; R. setosus Bigelow) with 

 from 200 to 300 long, soft bristles and you will have some 

 conception of 



Rubus Vermontanus, n. sp. Green Mountain Black- 

 herrj. 



New Canes* Upright, two to four feet long, with 

 about fiftj^ bristle -pointed prickles to the inch of stem ; 

 prickles straight, slanting downward, set at random and 



* Often improperly called sterile canes. It would be as proper to call 

 a chicken a sterile hen or rooster. 



