BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN RECORD 
VOL. XV JANUARY, 1926 No. 1 
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION AND THE COLD- 
RESISTING CHARACTER OF CERTAIN HER- 
BACEOUS PERENNIAL AND WOODY 
PLANT GROUPS! 
ORLAND E. WHITE 
Curator of Plant Breeding and Economic Plants, Brooklyn Botanic Garden 
Among horticulturists, foresters, gardeners, and others trained 
in the care and growing of herbaceous perennials and woody 
plants, it is common practice to use seed obtained from the 
northern limits of the geographical range of a certain species, 
when it is desired to grow this species in a district with similar 
winter temperature and other climatic conditions. This practice 
is based on the belief and tradition, supported by certain groups 
of facts, that herbaceous perennials and woody plants differ 
individually within the species in their ability to stand cold. 
This individual difference, so far as the writer knows, has 
never been correlated with any gross morphological or anatomical 
characters, such as are commonly used in distinguishing sys- 
tematic species, subspecies or varietal forms. For example, 
such a woody species as the black walnut (Juglans nigra), having 
a wide north and south temperature range, has not been segre- 
gated into subspecies on the basis of the differential geographical 
susceptibility of its individuals to temperature ranges. Black 
walnut trees from Minnesota, on the average, are indistinguish- 
able from those in Alabama or Texas. Yet from the standpoint 
of hardiness, z.e., ability to withstand the winters of the northern 
range limit of black walnuts, those from Texas and Alabama are 
1 Brooklyn Botanic Garden Contributions, No. 46. 
1 
