THE HEATHER IN AMERICA. 



It may have been introduced, unlikely as it seems, 

 or we may have to rank this heath with Scolopendrium 

 officinarum, Subularia aquatica and Marsilea quadri- 

 folia, as species of the Old World so sparingly repre- 

 sented in the New that they are known only at sin- 

 gle stations perhaps late lingerers rather than new- 

 comers. 



A further comment is as follows : The earliest 

 published announcement that we have been able to 

 find of Calluna vulgaris as an American plant is 

 that by Sir Wm. Hooker, in the index to his Flora 

 Boreali-Americana (2p. 280), issued in 1840. Here 

 it is stated that: "This should have been inserted 

 at p. 89, as an inhabitant of Newfoundland, on the 

 authority of De la Pylaie. Accordingly, in the sev- 

 enth volume of De Candolle's Prodromus, to the Euro- 

 pean habitat is added 'Etiam in Islandia, et in Terra 

 Nova Americae Borealis.' " But it does not appear that 

 Mr. Bentham had ever seen an American specimen. 

 He also overlooked the fact (to which Dr. Seemann 

 has recently called attention) that Gisecke, in Brews- 

 ter's Encyclopaedia, records it as a native of Green- 

 land. No mention is made of it by Dr. Lang in his 

 enumeration of the known plants of Greenland, ap- 

 pended to Rink's Geographical and Statistical account 

 of Greenland, published in 1857, from which we may 

 infer that the pla*nt is, perhaps, as rare and local in 

 Greenland as in Newfoundland, or even in Massachu- 

 setts. 



In this journal for September, 1861, the present 

 writer announced the unexpected discovery by Mr. 

 Jackson Dawson of a patch of heath in Tewksbury, 



38 



