209 



when in fruit, it bears a black berry about the size of a bird cherry. 

 Off the seacoast it is taller, probably a foot high, and much more 

 sparse. I have little doubt that it is the plant mentioned by Mr. Gis- 

 borne as occurring in Newfoundland. About ten years ago, when in 

 Montreal, I was informed by Sir George Simpson, that in crossing a 

 vast plain to the north-west, during his celebrated journey home 

 through the Russian territory, he met with a plant so like heather 

 that he felt perfectly confident that the existence of the latter in Amer- 

 ica was at last placed beyond question. A number of specimens were 

 selected, and carefully carried in the crown of his hat, but, when sub- 

 mitted to competent parties in London, were pronounced to belong to 

 a different class of plants altogether. In a recent letter from Frazer's 

 River, I see it stated by a Scotch miner that heather is very abundant 

 among the mountains.; but it is very probable that he has erred in the 

 point in question, just as Sir G. Simpson. The latter ought to have 

 been pretty familiar with heather, as he was brought up in the high- 

 lands of Scotland." 



Enclosed in Mr. McCuUoch's letter was one from Mr. F. N. Gis- 

 borne, of London, who writes : — 



" My beUef, however, is, that no heather grows in the island (New- 

 foundland), or I should certainly have observed it when collecting 

 mosses, &c., for my grandfather's valuable Jiortus siccus. I have 

 walked across Newfoundland twice — from St. John's westward, via 

 Piper's Hole (Placentia Bay), and Bay Despair to Cape Ray, opposite 

 Cape Breton, and twice north and south from Gander Bay and 

 Exploits Bay to Bay Despair. The foregoing surveys, independently 

 of my duties as engineer, during the construction of the line of tele- 

 graph from Cape Race to Cape Ray (by boat), around all the bays 

 and inlets eastward and northward to the Straits of Belle Isle. 



" There are one or two small berry-growing plants that are very 

 similar in appearance to heather, and which might readily be mistaken 

 for that plant, but I have never met with it in bloom or otherwise." 



Thus it seems to be pretty well ascertained that Calluna vulgaris 

 does not grow at the present time in Northern America, except at 

 Tewksbury. There can be scarce a doubt that its occurrence there is 

 adventitious. Those who are famiUar with the plant, where it grows 

 naturally and abundantly in Europe, say that its growth is quite dis- 

 similar there. Mr. Elias Durand, who is thoroughly familiar with the 

 heather of Brittany, writes me : — - 



" I must repeat that your Massachusetts Calluna is a very remarkable 

 form, which I never saw before ; and, not later than the summer before 

 the last, I was in Bretagne, where I saw plenty of heaths, old and 

 loved acquaintances, and did not see those large and globular flowers 

 which your Massachusetts Calluna shows." 



PROCEEDINGS B. 8. N. H.— VOL. IX. 14 JUNE, 1863. 



