169 



related with an unstable number of parts of various of the floral 

 organs.^ Whether the deeply divided condition of the corolla in 

 the subgenera O.vycoccus and Oxycoccoides of Vaccinium is a 

 primitive character, or of more recent origin, is outside the present 

 discussion. We are here concerned solely with the phenomenon of 

 polypetaly in the subgenus Cyanococcus — the true blueberries — of 

 eastern North America. 



The usual gamopetalous corolla of Vaccinium indicates its der- 

 ivation from a polypetalous type by the marked apical lobing and 

 the folds which, in some species, lead from the sinuses toward the 

 base (figure Ig). It is therefore not surprising that, on occasion, the 

 normal gamopetalous corolla splits into its fundamentally component 

 parts. This situation was recorded in the literature a few years ago 

 by Weatherby. The description of this material indicates that the 

 polypetalous condition was not completely stable, for various types 

 of segmentation were present on the same plant." 



For the last several years the present authors have watched an 

 abnormal clone which grows naturally in the woodland of the New 

 York Botanical Garden on the hillside just south of the Arch 

 Bridge, and which in consecutive years has produced polypetalous 

 flowers (figures la-f). It is a low-growing form apparently derived 

 from Vaccinium torreyanum, which is common in the area.^ 



1 Camp, W. H. Studies in the Ericales. A discussion of the genus Befaria 

 in North America. Bull. Torrey Club 68:100-111. 1941. 



- Weatherby, C. A. A teratological form of Vaccinium pcnnsylvaniciim. 

 Rhodora 29:237, 238. 1927. 



^ V. torreyamim is part of the complex which, in the manuals, has been 

 called V. vacillans. The "vacillans-complex," spreading over much of eastern 

 North America, contains the following : the southern and central Appalachian 

 V. pallidum Ait. (not V. paUidum of the manuals), a somewhat coarse shrub 

 with yellowish branches, sometimes ascending to two or even three feet ; the 

 more northern, northeasterly and Outer Piedmont V. torreyanum Camp with 

 its delicate, mostly greenish-barked branches rarely rising to more than 

 eighteen inches; the broad- and veiny-leafed V. subcordattun (Small) Uphof, 

 a plant apparently confined to the Cumberland Plateau and several of its out- 

 liers ; and V. viride Ashe and V. missouriense Ashe, both of which have their 

 primary centers somewhere in the Ozark Plateaus. These last two are dis- 

 tinguished from the others by their puberulent leaves, the coarser V. viride 

 apparently bearing much the same relation to V. missouriense that V. 

 pallidum does to F. torreyanum. Whether it will be advisable in the future 

 to keep these as nomenclaturally separate species, or to recognize them as 

 parts of a widespread and regionally variable species, will be decided only 



