Volume 7 Fehniarv 15, 1912 



MUHLENBERGIA 



ALPINE PLANTS— V. LiBS 



NEW 



By p. Beveridge Kennedy 



BOTAf 



A NEW Willow qari 



Many botanists who no doubt are familiar with the names 

 of some of the arctic and alpine willows in botanical literature, 

 may be glad of the opportunity to see a photograph of one of 

 the group in its natural habitat. The photographs were taken 

 in August, 1909, on the northwest side of Mt. Rose, Washoe 

 county, Nevada, at an altitude of about loooo feet. 



The melting snow as it comes through and over the rocks 

 in the nature of a spring, brings with it particles of sand and 

 vegetation, which form a very shallow layer of soil on a flat 

 area a little to one side of the main force of the stream. On 

 this the willow branches adhere like ivy, rooting at every joint 

 and interlaced so as to form a dense mat. From these, erect 

 leafy shoots one or two inches high appear, with the many flow- 

 ered catkins extending above the foliage. The pistillate plants 

 occupy separate but adjacent areas to the staminate ones. 



Whether the mass has increased from a number of distinct 

 plants or from one or two, it is impossible to determine. Al- 

 though producing an abundance of seed, there is no evidence 

 that it propagates itself in this manner. No plants are founc 

 below it in the prevailing direction of the wind. 



Rydberg, in his paper on "Caespitose Willows of Arcti* 

 America and the Rocky Mountains," in the Bulletin of the Nev 

 York Botanical Garden 1: 257, treats of twenty-four species 

 We have considered this Mt. Ro.se willow as Salix petrophil 

 Rydb., but in the first place it differs in having leaves ellipticc 

 and acuminate at both ends instead of "obovate." S. saxhno?i 

 tana Rydb. is another alpine species found in the state, but 



