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Claytonia Chamissoi Ledeb. in Minnosota 

 John M. Holzinger 



On August 7 of the present year of 1928, Mr. E. L. King 

 agreed to establish a special plant refuge for the station of 

 Claytonia chamissoi, since he owns the ground. It was on 

 June 19, 1889, that I discovered a colony of this high altitude 

 Rocky Mountain species in a short creek close to the west 

 base of Queen's Bluff, on the bank of the Mississippi River. 

 Its home is in the spray of the water falls along the crest 

 range of the Rockies, 5000 to 7000 ft. above sea-level. Its 

 Minnesota station is a bare 600 ft., or little more, above sea- 

 level. So the colony is 2000 to 3000 miles from its natural 

 home. A lonesome outpost. 



After studying the plant for several seasons, and explaining 

 certain discrepancies, I announced my find in the Plant 

 World of March, 1901. By then I had become convinced that 

 the plant is a perennial: it was described as an annual. It 

 propagates by delicate stolons, which terminate in light 

 flesh colored bulbils the size of rice grains. These are the vital 

 perennating part of the plant. And the complete plant is 

 figured in the Plant World, showing this mode of propaga- 

 tion. 



Now, Britton and Brown's Manual (1901) includes 

 Minnesota in the range of this Claytonia. But a little re- 

 flection will show that the Queen's Bluff station is in no or- 

 dinary sense an extension of the range. For in these 40 years — 

 not a single new station has been reported from any of the 

 states between the Rockies and the Mississippi River. The 

 plant looks like a remarkable relict of the Ice Age. If so, 

 it must have existed, and persisted, in its present obscure 

 nook not less than 10,000 years. Some glacial geologists, 

 to whom I have submitted the problem — JDrs. Kay, Trow- 

 bridge, Sardeson — speak even of 100,000 years. 



Claytonia chamissoi on the west bank of the Father of 

 Waters, has thus a distinction of its own: it is entirely out 

 of its range. If the theory is correct, — that it was brought 

 by a glacier, — it also has the dignity derived from great age. 



How could it persist thousands of years in one station? 



