41 



tation {)\XT k)ng distances, to spread over so vast a territory 

 within the memory of persons still living. No mention is made 

 of it in either "Chapman's Flora of the Southern States" (1884) 

 or in the Vlth edition of Gray's Manual (1889), and it was not 

 until about this period that my own attention was aroused by 

 the discovery that it was beginning to run wild in low, damp 

 places around Macon, Ga. Since then it has spread over prac- 

 tically the whole of the Eastern States, from the Gulf of Mexico 

 to the estuary of the Hudson, making itself equally at home in 

 the low hammocks of the Coastal Plain, on the old red hills of 

 the Piedmont region, on the stony ramparts of the Lookout 

 Plateau, and onward for a thousand miles up the great Appa- 

 lachian Valley. A writer from Texas in the American Botanist 

 (Vol. 24, p. 5) mentions it as having "established itself in the 

 brush around dwellings" in some parts of that State, and Dr. 

 R. M. Harper also writes me that he has seen it growing along 

 roadsides in Hingham, Mass. 



The ease with which it propagates by runners will account for 

 the rapid dispersal of the species locally, but for those distant 

 migrations by which it has spread from Texas to New England 

 and from the mountains to the sea, some more expeditious means 

 of transportation is needed. The dissemination of seed through 

 the agency of birds is the most natural means that suggests it- 

 self, and is probably the one employed, though the adaptation 

 for this purpose is not very apparent. The berries, in addition 

 to their infrequency, are "conspicuously" inconspicuous, being 

 small, black, and sessile, or nearly so, in the axils of the dark green 

 leaves, where it is difficult to see how they could attract atten- 

 tion even in a real "bird's-eye view." The small nutlets are 

 embedded in a mucilaginous pulp like that of the mistletoe, but 

 of a dark greenish color and an insipid, bittersweet taste, that 

 would not seem likely to tempt a fastidious palate. It is not 

 unlikely, however, that this pulp may play an important part 

 in the distribution of seed, by sticking to the feet of birds and 

 insects, and being carried about from place to place like the 

 mistletoe. The plant is spread to some extent, even locally, by 

 seed, and I have occasionally found a new colon\' forming in 



