211 



White Mountain Willows.— Ill 



* 



By M. S. Bf.bb. 



Salix argyrocarpa, Anders. 



" When we think of all the botanists of the preceding gener- 

 ation who, atone time or another, were called upon to make some 

 disposition of this beautiful willow, requiring a more or less criti- 

 cal study of its character,— Hooker, Pursh, Nuttall, Carey, Tuck- 

 erman, Barratt, and others — the wonder grows that some one of 

 them did not recognize in it a distinct species. The habit of the 

 plant, if nothing more, ought to have given a hint that the refer- 

 ence to 6". repens, which they all seemed bent upon making, was 

 a mistake. In the herbarium of the Philadelphia Academy of 

 Sciences there is a specimen labelled " 5. Lahradorica, Schw., 

 White Hills, N. H.~H. Little," but I cannot learn that the name 

 was ever published. It shows, however, that at a very early day, 

 the plant was known to occur in Labrador, a locality discredited 

 by Andersson, but which is abundantly confirmed by recent col- 

 lections. 



The full and accurate description given by Andersson leaves 

 little to be said in addition, and less by way of criticism. But 

 as to the way the plant grows in its native habitat, the books have 

 little to tell us. Mr. Carey groups it with S. pedicellaris, S. Uva 

 Ursi, etc., as a " small shrub," which being evidently the sum 

 total of information available to Andersson, is rendered " Fritti- 

 culus noil altnsr I mention this only that the average reader 



M 



He 



'ocarp 



ed in its range in the White Mountains than 5. phylicifolia. In 



*AW^.— Concerning the general chaiacter of the "White Mountain S. phylut- 

 folia, my remarks were unguarded and do not fairly state the amount of actual di- 

 vergence from the Old World type. While I do not wish to qualify in the least 

 what was said of the closeness of resemblance observed between some of Mr. 

 Faxon's specimens and certain others of genuine phylicifolia from Lapland, it i;; 

 nevertheless true that from the common meeting ground thus indicated, the Euro- 

 pean forms vary mainly in the direction of S. nignavis, S. cafrm, etc., whereas 

 >n this country the variation is in the direction of S. chLn-ophylla, and hence in so 

 far as any difference appears in a series of specimens, it is a diiTerence markedl.y 

 shorter pedicels, longer styles, and more slender aments. I intended ray closing 

 words to cover this, but was not sufficiently explicit. 



