ST. JOHN: SABLE ISLAND. 85 



the observations of both these explorers apparently the only member 

 of the genus on the island. The plant in habit, outline of foliage, and 

 large flowers, as well as in the characters of its calyx and seeds, ex- 

 actly matches the common E. molle Torr. of the mainland, while the 

 capsules have the peculiar glandular pubescence which is found upon 

 the capsules of E. molle, but in the Sable Island plant much more 

 highly developed than is common in mainland specimens. The 

 stems and the leaves of the Sable Island plant, however, are 

 densely cinereous with appressed and incurved hairs, exactly as 

 in E. densum Raf.; E. molle having the stems, leaves, etc., densely 

 covered with fine, straight conspicuously spreading pubescence. 



"This Sable Island plant with the technical characters of calyx, pet- 

 als, etc., and the glandular pubescence of the capsule, and the exact 

 habit and leaf-outline of E. molle, but with the pubescence of the 

 leaves and stems exactly as in E. densum would, if found upon the main- 

 land, be promptly called a hybrid between those two species. But 

 neither of the species has been detected on Sable Island, a region of 

 sufficiently limited area to give assurance that the extended explor- 

 ations of Macoun in 1899, of Giissow in 1911, and of St. John in 1913, 

 when the latter explorer spent four weeks in an intensive study of the 

 flora, would have brought to light any other existing member of the 

 genus. Upon Sable Island, then, this plant, combining the characters 

 of two ordinarily distinct species of the mainland, cannot be accepted 

 as a hybrid, at least of modern origin. There is, moreover, reason to 

 believe that the flora of Sable Island reached that area during the 

 late Pleistocene and has been isolated from the mainland 'flora since 

 that time. However long this period may have been, whether es- 

 timated by thousands or tens of thousands of years, it has certainly 

 been a sufficient time for the Sable Island plant to have become thor- 

 oughly fixed in its characters, and even if, many thousands of years 

 ago, it may have originated as a hybrid, it has upon Sable Island in- 

 tensified its characters and become a thoroughly constant plant. 



"The case of this plant is exactly comparable with that of E. densum, 

 \ar.nesophilum * * * the peculiar variant of E. densum found upon New- 

 foundland and the Magdalen Islands, where no true E. densum is 

 found, but in those areas suggesting that it might have originated in 

 the long-distant past by the hybridization of E. densum of the South 

 and E. palustre of the North. Whether these plants have had such 

 an origin is entirely problematical and it may as confidently be argued 



