166 THe Orrawa NATURALIST. | December. 
64,707, the type. This species bears a remarkable likeness to the 
common chickweed as that appears in its later and fructiterous 
development. It is akin to A. alsinozdes of Idaho, yet very dis- 
tinct. 
AN ALPINE VARIETY OF CNICUS MUTICUS. 
By M. L. FERNALD. 
Cnicus muticus of our eastern swamps and low woods is a tall 
loosely branched plant with numerous scattered heads, the in- 
volucres of which are whitened with dense cobwebby hairs. This 
plant is frequent in southern New England, and in the more 
northern States and adjacent Canada it becomes one of the con- 
spicuous elements of lowland vegetation. 
On the alpine tableland of Mt. Albert in the Shickshock 
Mountains, a low simple-stemmed Cnicus abounds in boggy spots, 
Ordinarily only 3-6 dm. tall and very strict, with the 3 to 5 showy 
heads sessile in a terminal glomerule, the plant suggests at first 
sight some species very remote from the tall loosely branched C. 
muticus of low altitudes. In its dark purplish-green nearly 
glabrous involucre the plant is likewise quite different from typical 
C. muticus with its strongly white-arachnoid bracts. 
On Mt. Albert the plant, as stated, is strict and low, but when 
it occasionally descends from the alpine tablelands and follows the 
rivers which have their sources in the Shickshock Mountains it 
becomes very tall. Thus, in alluvial thickets of the Little Casa- 
pedia River the plant, retaining its simple habit and glomerulate 
heads, becomes 1.6 m. high. As far as known to the writer this 
characteristic plant is confined to a limited area in eastern Quebec, 
where it is usually constant to the peculiar characters described. 
Occasional plants from adjacent territory are similar in habit but 
with the involucre quite as arachnoid as in typical Crzcus muticus. 
On this account and in the absence of any constant character in 
the foliage or in the form and texture of the bracts the plant should 
be considered an extreme variation of the widely distributed C. 
_ muticus, and on account of its great development in the alpine 
regions of Mt. Albert it may be called 
Cnicus muticus (Michx.) Pursh, var. monticola var. nov. Caule 
