^ Aconitum noveboracense A. Gray 



H. A. Gleason and Wm. J. Bonisteel 



This rare species was originally discovered by A. Willard in 

 Chenango county, New York, prior to 1857; it was again col- 

 lected near Oxford, in the same county, by A. L. Coville and 

 F. V. Coville in 1885 and 1887. It was later found by Mr. and 

 Mrs. Van Brunt along the Beaverkill in Ulster County and again 

 along the same river by Dr. H. H. Rusby in 1891. So far as we 

 know, without making an exhaustive search of literature or 

 herbaria, these are its only known stations. 



Dr. Rusby remembered clearly the details of the location 

 where he found the plant. With his directions in mind, we visit- 

 ed the banks of the Beaverkill river on August 12 and 13, 1929 

 and succeeded in locating possibly a hundred plants, ranging in 

 height from a few inches to four feet, and in condition from 

 young seedlings to blooming or fruiting adults. The season of 

 bloom was in general past, and the few flowers remaining were 

 mostly on lower lateral branches. Only a small fraction of the 

 flowers were producing seed. It is quite possible that the season 

 was a difficult one for the plants. Floods in 1928 had raised the 

 river to unprecedented heights and probably washed out many 

 of the rhizomes, while the exceptional drought of 1929 was cer- 

 tainly not favorable to them. They were also extraordinarily 

 difficult to find, chiefly because of the lack of flowers. We know 

 that we passed slowly through the best colony of them three 

 times before we saw any of them, and then located at least fifty 

 within a few feet of each other. It is gratifying to know that 

 they are producing viable seeds and reproducing; certainly more 

 than half of the plants were healthy juveniles which had not 

 yet bloomed. 



The Beaverkill river, a clear rushing stream, flows here 

 through a narrow valley with a small strip of alluvial deposits 

 on one or both sides. This flood-plain is by no means flat, but 

 is frequently diversified by narrow ridges of almost pure sand, 

 merely stained black by humus, rising one to three feet above 

 the general level and quite variable in length. These ridges 

 usually lie nearer the river than the bluffs, and are separated 

 from the bluffs by a depression which sometimes approaches a 

 swamp in character and almost always shows an approach to 



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