304* REMARKS ON SOME FEATURES OF 



United States, it seems difficult for American botanists to 

 realize that it does not extend into Canada through some of the 

 valleys that connect the two countries. It was attributed to 

 Canada by Michaux. Like the Cercis, it was included in 

 Hooker's Flora Bo reali- Americana, an authority of Pursh ; and 

 even in Dr. Asa Gray's lasi and greatest work, the Synoptical 

 Flora, it was recognized as Canadian. The fact is, however, 

 that we have no actual evidence of the occurrence of this species 

 in British America. The only definite record to the contrary is 

 that of Mr. B. Billings, Jr., who thirty years ago included the 

 name in a list of Prescott Plants published in the Annals of the 

 Botanical Society of Canada. Mr. B., however, found, some 

 some years later, that he had mistaken a broad-leaved form of 

 K. anyustifolia for the more southern species. That the southern 

 limitation of certain woody plants is not due to unsuitable 

 climatal conditions in the north at the present time is shown 

 by the readiness with which such plants grow when planted, as 

 in the case of the southern Rhododendron Catawbiense, which 

 has flourished in a remarkable manner at Lucyfield, near 

 Halifax, growing freely, and forming thickets of from ten to 

 fifteen feet in height, blossoming abundantly, and spreading 

 itself by seed to adjoining grounds. Indeed it is a much more 

 robust plant and more rapid grower than the native R. maxi- 

 mum, which seems to be now almost extinct in Nova Scotia, and 

 to have become very rare in the Province of Quebec. At Lucy- 

 field, Rhododendron ponticum has not survived, although large 

 numbers have been planted, while Azalea pontica that grows 

 with it in beech woods in the Caucasus, is perfectly hardy and 

 grows as vigorously as any native bush. 



Of other plants in Mr. Kearney's collection may be noticed 

 the oil nut, Pyrularia pmbera ; sassafras (the Laurus Sassafras 

 of Linnaeus, Sassafras offidnale of Nees and Esenbeck, and of the 

 forthcoming volume of Hortus Kewensis), the fruit as well as 

 the bark of the root of which yields sassafras oil. This species, 

 although indicated in books such as Lindley's Flora Medica, as 

 growing generally in " woods of North America from Canada to 



