Report of the Botanist. 69 



(^) 



PLANTS FOUND GROWING SPONTANEOUSLY IN THE STATE AND 

 NOT BEFORE REPORTED. 



Lythrum alatum Piirsh. 



Wet places in pastures. West Albany. Probably introduced 

 from the west. 



Chj^rophyllum pkocumbens Lam, 



Along the banks of Clyde river near Lyons. E. L. Ilankenson. 



Arceuthobium pusillum Peck. 



Plant scattered or closely gregarious, small, ^" ~\S)" high, simple 

 or slightly branched, varying in color from olive-green to chestnut; 

 leaf-like scales opposite, connate at the base, forming a cup-like 

 sheath, broad, scarcely pointed ; inflorescence dioecious, flowers 

 terminal and lateral, single in the axils of the scales, sessile, termi- 

 nal male flower-bud globose, lateral ones compressed, sepals and 

 stameys three, the latter opposite the former; fruit ovate, subacu- 

 minate and a little more highly colored toward the apex, nodding 

 on a shortly exserted peduncle, the seed involved in a viscid 

 mucus, escaping from the base of the pericarp. 



Flowers in spring; fruit mature in autumn. Living branches of 

 spruce trees, Abies nigra. Sandlake, Rensselaer county. 



The stems of the fruiting plant, and even the fruit itself, in the 

 dried state, are somewhat quadrangular, but in the fresh state they 

 are nearly terete. The species is related to ArceiithoMu7n cam2)ylo- 

 poditm Engelm., but is smaller, less branched, with the scales not 

 cuspidate and the flowers opening earlier in the season. It w^as 

 detected near Warrensburgh, Warren county, by Mrs. L. Milling- 

 ton, a few weeks previous to its discovery in Sandlake, but I have 

 seen no specimens from that locality. Its range is probably north- 

 ward. 



Tlie trees on which it occurs in Sandlake grow on the low peaty 

 borders of a cranberry marsh. They are few aiid snjall and have 

 short leaves and a bushy starved appearance. Such trees in some 

 localities are called " hastard spruce.^'' 1 suspect the feeble condi- 

 tion of the tree to be the occasion not the result of the attack of 

 the parasite. All the plants, so far as 1 have observed, grow on 

 the younger parts of the branches, but never on the young and 

 tender shoot of the current season. Considering this as the first 

 internode in our progress from the extremity of an aflfected branch 

 toward the trunk whence it has its origin, we shall find, in Sep- 

 tember, small hemispherical buds just emerging from the bark of 

 the second^ small plants with flower-buds occupying the third and 



