28 MEMOIRS FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE. 
[Prare 1.] 
1. Polygonum bistortoides Pursh. 
Polygonum Bistorta Chamisso & Schlechtendal, Linnaea, 3: 37 (1828), not Linnaeus; 
Hooker, Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 130; Meisner in DC. Prodr. 14: 125; 8. Watson, Bot. King’s 
Exp. 317, Bot. Calif. 2: 14; Porter & Coulter, Syn. Fl. Col. 123; Coulter, Man. Bot. 
Rocky Mt. Reg. 320; Greene, Fl. Francis. 137. 
Polygonum bistortoides Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. 271 (1814); Meisner, Monog. 51; Eaton 
& Wright, N. A. Bot. Ed. 8, 367. 
Polygonum Bistorta var. oblongifolium Meisner in DC. Prodr, 14: 126 (1856); Porter 
& Coulter, Syn. Fl. Col. 124. 
Perennial, glabrous or sometimes with a fine hispidulous pubescence on the under 
surface of the leaves, more or less glaucous throughout. Rootstock enlarged, fleshy, 
creeping or horizontal, chaffy with the remains of modified ocreae ; stem erect or assurgent, 
2.5-7 dm. long, slender, simple; radical leaves oblong-lanceolate, oblong or oblanceolate, 
10-25 em. long, .5-3 em. broad, acute or obtusish, acuminate at the base; the mid-rib 
rather broad and conspicuous on both sides; petioles 5-20 cm. long; cauline leaves mostly 
narrowly lanceolate, 3-15 em. long, sessile (except some of the lower ones), subcordate or 
cordate, arising from near the summit of the ocreae, all often revolute and conspicuously 
nerved; ocreae narrowly cylindric, 4-8 cm. long, entire or somewhat broken about the 
more or less expanded obliquely opened summit, clasping the stem closely, sometimes 
split from the attachment of the leaf to the base; inflorescence consisting of a single ter- 
minal spicate raceme; raceme oblong, 1-6 cm. long, 1-1.5 cm. broad, densely flowered ; 
ocreolae lanceolate or oblong, 3-6 mm. long, acuminate, toothed, strongly one-ribbed ; 
pedicels slender, 3-7 mm. long, articulated at the base of the calyx; calyx about 4 mm. 
long, colored, varying from light rose color to white, five-parted nearly to the base, the 
segments oblong, faintly nerved; stamens eight, exserted; style three-parted nearly to 
the base, 3-4 mm. long, exserted; achene triquetrous, 3.5-4 mm. long, rhombic obovoid, 
narrowed at the base, light brown, smooth and shining. 
Alpine and subalpine parts of the mountains of Colorado, Arizona and California, 
northward to the arctic regions. 
