Gaultheria ERICACEAE Gaylussacia 



among pines in Sussex, Caroline, Wicomico and Worcester Counties. 

 Mid-June, early July. 



Gaylussacia HBK. Huckleberries. 

 G. brachycera (Mx.) Gray. Box Huckleberry. 



Rare; Sussex County, This plant, first collected by Michaux in 

 Virginia (?) prior to 1800, was soon thereafter lost to botanical 

 knowledge for about forty years, when another station was dis- 

 covered for it in Perry County, Pennsylvania. Here, as studied by 

 Coville in 1918 ("Science," Vol. 50: 30. 1919), it was found to occupy 

 a continuous area of about eight acres; was considered to be repre- 

 sented by a single plant, almost completely infertile to its own 

 pollen; to be of slow annual growth, sprung from a seed germinating 

 perhaps 1200 years previously, hence among the oldest of living 

 things. Thus a botanical celebrity, search was made for other 

 authenticated occurrences of the species, and from herbarium speci- 

 mens it was learned that William M. Canby had collected it ("shores 

 of Indian River") in Sussex County, Delaware, May 1870 (P, A), 

 and that this station, in pine woods \}/2 mi. e. of Millsboro, had been 

 visited by Commons in 1875, 1876, 1877. It was then again lost, 

 for in the autumn of 1898 Canby undertook to show it to his friends. 

 Dr. C. S. Sargent and John Muir, and they "passed a long day 

 hunting for it without success in southern Delaware. He (Canby) 

 was, I remember, a good deal chagrined at his failure to show us the 

 plant and we always teased him about it" (unpublished letter, C. S. 

 Sargent to H. M. Canby, June 8, 1920). 



In 1918 a botanist sent by Dr. Coville spent two days in una- 

 vailing search for the plant, in the Canby locality, where however 

 it was found by Dr. Wherry in 1919 after a search of three days. 

 Living plants taken to Washington for cross-pollination with 

 Pennsylvania material resulted in seeds fully fertile, thus confirming 

 the individuality of its representation in these two isolated stations, 

 then its only known habitats. Its known distribution has since 

 been greatly expanded, and Wherry ("Bull. Torrey Bot. Club," 

 61: 81-84. 1934) records it from seven States. With these historic 

 associations, members of the Society of Natural History of Dela- 

 ware felt that full knowledge of the occurrence of this plant in 

 Delaware should be entered in the archives of the Society, and on 

 May 31, 1920, four members of the Society (H. M. Canby, Otis, 

 Harvey, F. M. Jones), with the available data from the original 



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