48 H. G. SIMMONS. [sec. arct. exp. fram 



tlie other hand, be a question of referring any of tlie specimens lying 

 under P. pulchella to the former species. Also those specimens from 

 Wulff's own collection that I have seen, I could easily place under 

 one of the two species. As for some of his figures (1. c, T. 4), I think 

 there must be a mistake; the figures 14 and 15, can hardly belong to 

 any but P. pulchella, unless perhaps there exists another species in 

 Spitsbergen, viz. P. ruhricaulis, Lehm. ; to that I shall return later. 



From the other Ellesmereland species, P. pulchella is clearly dis- 

 tinguished by its distinctly smaller flowers, whose petals are at most, 

 of the length of the sepals. It is this character also which immediately 

 shows that Trautvetter, Consp. Fl. Nov. Semi., p. 65, is entirely wrong 

 in using the name P. sericea, L. var. dasyphylla, (Bunge) Ledeb., for it. 

 As Nathorst, Nya bidr., p. 12, remarks, the Novaja Semlja plant is 

 very like that of Spitsbergen; indeed it differs somewhat in the size of the 

 flowers, but they are not those of the real P. sericea or its var. dasy- 

 phylla (P. dasyphylla, Bunge in Ledebour, Fl. Alt.). Indeed it is 

 curious enough that an American species such as P. pulchella, should 

 grow in Spitsbergen and Novaja Semlja, and should not be found in 

 the adjacent parts of Siberia, but I think it may still be found there. 

 At least, the explanation is not to be found in that direction, where 

 Trautvetter and Nathorst have sought it, and the Spitsbergen-Novaja 

 Semlja plant is doubtless P. pulchella, as I have had the opportunity 

 of ascertaining by examination of specimens. The real P. sericea and 

 also Bunge's species, have flowers with large and broad petals, not the 

 short ones of P. pulchella which are so narrow as not to touch each 

 other with the margin. Also in comparing with the figure 331 in Lede- 

 bour, Ic. pi. Fl. Ross., representing the species dasyphylla of Bunge, 

 one is unable to understand how this can have been referred to the plant 

 from Novaja Semlja, as it represents a PotentiUa with large flowers of 

 a dark yellow, with assurgent stems and leaves with several pairs of 

 of longciliate leaflets, that do not seem to be very hairy over the rest. 

 One arrives at the same result in studying the description in Ledebour, 

 Fl. Alt., and as I have also seen original specimens of Bunge in the 

 Copenhagen herbarium, I am quite certain that the Novaja Semlja plant 

 has nothing to do with his species, but must be referred to the arctic 

 P. pulchella, perhaps as a separate variety, with larger flowers than 

 that in America-Greenland. 



I have also to mention another form which I have found, if not in 

 its most extreme development, viz., the so-called P. Sommerfelli, Leh- 

 MANN, Nov. Stirp. Pug. IX (Fig. Revis. Potent., T. 10, fig. 2). I have 



