55 



SHORTER NOTES 



A Saxifrage from the Queen Charlotte Islands and its 

 Relatives. — Among the plants collected on the Queen Char- 

 lotte Islands by an expedition from the American Museum of 

 Natural History and recently given to the New York Botanical 

 Garden, is a specimen of a species of Saxifraga heretofore not 

 represented in our herbaria. The plant belongs to the subgenus 

 Arabidia which, prior to the acquisition of the plants referred to, 

 was represented in North America by six species. These six 

 species were equally divided between eastern and western North 

 America. One species is common in the southern Alleghenies, 

 two are found in Labrador and Greenland, while the remaining 

 three are confined to the territory from the Rocky Mountains 

 to the Pacific Ocean. 



In the case of some of the species of this group the flowers 

 are mainly replaced with bulblets, but the plant under consider- 

 ation is destitute of bulblets and bears flowers about thrice the 

 size of those borne on any of the other species. I shall name 

 the species after the collector, Dr. C. F. Newcombe : 



Saxifraga Newcombei. — Perennial, acaulescent, the caudex 

 short. Leaves basal ; blades spatulate, 4-8 cm. long, sessile, 

 coarsely serrate-dentate above the middle, more or less glandular- 

 pubescent and ciliate : scapes solitary, erect, 12—22 cm. tall, 

 simple below the inflorescence, glandular-villous, corymbosely 

 branched above : bracts similar to the leaves, but smaller and 

 relatively less toothed : hypanthium nearly flat, 1.5—2 mm. broad : 

 sepals ovate to oval, 3-5 mm. long, obtuse, glabrous or nearly 

 so, usually purple, becoming refiexed : petals white, the three 

 upper 7.5 mm. long, with lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate bimacu- 

 late blades, truncate or cordate at the base, and claws about 

 1 mm. long, the two lower petals with oblong or elliptic blades 

 8 mm. long : filaments subulate, 4 mm. long : fruit not seen. 



Type specimen from the Queen Charlotte Islands, collected 

 during the summer of 1901, in the herbarium of the New York 

 Botanical Garden. It is most closely related to Saxifraga ferru- 

 ginca Graham, but this species is smaller in every way, the flowers 

 being barely one third as large, while the pubescence is rufous 

 instead of pale as in 5. Nezvcombci. J. K. Small 



