FLORA OF NOVA SCOTIA — LAWSON. 85 



tab. 14; letterpress description by Dr. Lawson. Published by- 

 Reeves, London. 



Thalictrum Cornutii. Tall Meadow Rue. False Maiden- 

 Hair. Dr. Cornuti's Thalietruni. Thalietrum Canadense, Cor- 

 nutii Canadensiuni Plantarum Historia, caput LXX., p. 186, 

 (Paris, 1635). The letterpress description may pass for our 

 plant, but the eno-raving is that of a different species. The spell- 

 ing Thalietruni runs all through the Historia of Cornutius, and 

 is carefully reproduced by Tournefort (Inst. Rei Herb.). Wet 

 meadows and margins of streams and permanent brooks. On 

 elevated banks of streams, where the roots cannot reach the 

 water or moist soil, the plant becomes very much dwarf edf but 

 loses none of its distinctive characters. Not uncommon in many 

 parts of Nova Scotia ; abundant along the Sackville River and 

 ditches of the Rifle Range, Bedford, and neighborhood. County 

 of Halifax. 



Digby Gut, County of Digby (7 feet high) ; Windsor Falls and 

 Windsor (8 feet), and Windsor, Hants County, Dr. How. 

 Truro, marshes, common. Dr. G. C. Campbell. Strait of 

 Canso, Guysborough County, Rev. E. H. Ball. Ellershouse, 

 Hants County, Mr. Beckman. Pictou, A. H. McKay. A 

 form (5 or 6 feet high) with all the parts of the flower of a deep 

 purple colour, but diflei'ing in no other respect, occurs in a wet 

 pasture by the roadside on the Old Windsor Road, thirteen miles 

 from the city of Halifax. 



T. Cornutii is a very distinct species, and the only one of the 

 genus actually known to exist in Nova Scotia ; but, in the 

 descriptions and flgures in books, as well as in specimens in 

 Herbaria in diflerent countries, it has been very much mixed 

 with other species. The name Cornutii, hitherto misspelt 

 Ijy (dl botanists, Cornuti, has thus become complex and 

 enigmatical. To remedy this, Mr. Watson, in the sixth edition 

 of Gray's Manual, has adopted the name polygamum, which, 

 however, is open to the same objection. Lecoyer adopts 

 DeCandolle's name, corynellavi. Freyn, of Prague, the latest 

 writer on Ranunculaceffi, favours retaining Cornutii for our 

 plant. The Abbe Provancher prefers the old pre-Linnpean name, 



