﻿S. W. Ford — Age of the Swedish Paradoxides Beds. 4:73 



from these intermediate forms can only be distinguished from 

 the typical M. acuminata by their occasional sub-cordate leaves 

 and smaller flowers. The facts, then, in the case are these. No 

 botanist during the present century has ever discovered in a 

 wild state a tree exactly like the M. cordata of gardens, which 

 is now only known by trees propagated and possibly changed 

 by cultivation from the plant or plants introduced into France 

 by Michaux. Forms intermediate in character between M. 

 acuminata and M. cordata are common in a wild state in the 

 region often visited by Michaux, and where his son says that 

 M. cordata was discovered by his father and himself. It is not 

 improbable, therefore, that M. cordata may have been founded 

 by Richard, the author of Michaux's Flora, on a specimen from 

 one of these doubtful trees which Michaux himself had not dis- 

 tinguished in the field as a distinct species. But what- 

 ever may have been the origin of the species described in 

 Michaux's Flora, these intermediate forms between the two 

 species, which have been discovered oflate years, seem to make 

 it necessary to consider Michaux's M. cordata, as known in 

 gardens, to be a rare and local variety of M. acuminata* 



[Since this article was placed in the printer's hands, Professor Sargent has 

 received a letter from a correspondent resident in the region, reporting the dis- 

 covery of the Shortia at another station in the vicinity, where there were " rods 

 covered with it." "We may now hope that the continued survival of this notable 

 member of our flora is assured. The interest of botanists in this rediscovery of 

 the original habitat by Professor Sargent, and its extension by his correspondent, 

 is of the highest. 



Let me add that " les sauvages" who told Michaux that the leaves are pleasant- 

 tasted and aromatic when crushed, must have had reference to Gaultheria procum- 

 bens and not to the Shortia, the foliage of which is slightly mucilaginous and 

 odorless.— A. Gray.] 



v- 



Aet. LV. — Note on the Age of the Swedish Paradoxides Beds ; 

 by S. W. Foed. 



V 



It has been customary to look upon the Swedish Paradoxides 

 beds as representing, in part, the oldest known portion of the 

 Primordial zone. M. Linnarsson, in comparing these beds with 

 those of the Menevian and Harlech groups of Great Britain, 

 states that the latter " correspond to the Swedish Paradoxides 

 beds and, in part, to the sandstones underlying the Paradoxides 



Ha acuminata var. cordata. 

 M. foliis lato-ovalis basi subcordatis vet ovalibus acuminatis subtus pubescentibus 



vet subtomentosis ; floribus flavis. 



A small tree sometimes 60 feet in height, the leaves darker green and more 

 persistent than those of the species with which it is often associated on dry ridges 

 and mountain slopes. Northern Alabama. (C. Mohr) Blue Eidge, North and 

 South Carolina (Sargent) and common in gardens. 



