54 CHLORIS BOREALI-AMERICANA. 



A. nudiflora, popularly known under the name of " Swai7ip Ap- 

 ples.^' These are altered flower-buds, which, possibly on account 

 of the puncture of insects (though of this I have seen no proof), 

 develope in the form of solid succulent excrescences, half an inch to 

 an inch in diameter, of irregular shape, but in which at first all the 

 parts of the flower, though misshapen and obese, can often be dis- 

 tinguished. They obtain their full size at midsummer, when they 

 have a not unpleasant acid flavor, and are greedily eaten by boys. 

 Since the foregoing account was prepared for the press, I have 

 fortunately detected a true evergreen species of Gaylussacia, in- 

 digenous to the United States. The plant I refer to is the ex- 

 tremely rare Vaccinium buxifolium of Salisbury, the V. hrachycerum 

 of Michaux, which I have in vain sought for in the mountains of 

 Virginia, but which has lately been discovered in Pennsylvania (in 

 Perry county, near Bloomfield), by Professor Baird, of Dickenson 

 College. From the specimens which this accomplished naturalist 

 has obligingly sent me, I find that it has a ten-celled ovary, with a 

 solitary ovule in each cell, instead of presenting the structure ot the 

 section Vitis-Idcea, with which the plant agrees in habit ; and the 

 fruit is evidently a ten-pyrenous drupe.* 



" * Gaylussacia hrachycera : humilis, glaberrima; ramis angulatis ; foliis (Buxi) 

 ovalibus crenato-serrulatis ; racemis subsessilibus glomeratis ; pedicellis 2-bracteo- 

 latis brevissimis ; corolla (rubro tincta) breviter campanulato-cylindracea ; anthe- 

 ris in tubulos vix productis filamento ciliato brevioribus. — Vaccinium buxifolium, 

 SalisI). Farad. Lond., t. 4 ; Bot. Mag., t. 928; Bot. Cab., t. 648. V. brachyce- 

 rum, Michx. Fl. 1, p. 234. " 



The habitat given in the Flora of Michaux is, "In Virginia, circa Winchester" ; 

 but the specimen in his proper herbarium at the Jardin des Flantes is marked 

 " Warm Springs." There are specimens in the herbarium of Muhlenberg, ticketed 

 " Vaccinium Poxafolia, Krien Freyer," in the unmistakable chirography and or- 

 thography of Matthew Kin ; from which I infer that this collector found the plant in 



