176 Rhodora [OCTOBER 
Miss Lydia M. Folger tells me this year that she was with Mrs. 
Dahlgren once when she set out plants in just about the spots where 
Mrs. Morgan found the two now living. ‘This raises the question 
whether these are really from wind-blown seed or are those of Mrs. 
Dahlgren’s that have lived and flourished. The only thing appar- 
ently certain is that they are not to be classed with Mrs. Atwater’s 
discovery. Mrs. Morris searched the vicinity in 1871, and others 
have done the same year after year, but all in vain till the two speci- 
mens now growing near the plant of 1868 appeared; as to the origin 
of that all are free to form a conjecture, or to call it a waif and there 
let it rest. 
There is no mystery about Erica tetralix and Calluna vulgaris, 
found in Mr. Henry Coffin’s nursery. It is only this year that I 
learned the true history of the trees there. I had been told before 
this that Mr. Coffin, owning unimproved land, exchanged some of 
it with Mr. George B. Emerson for an equivalent in trees; this is 
not quite correct, but we are not concerned now with the way Mr. 
Emerson acquired property in Nantucket. I have at hand a copy of 
a letter written in April, 1877, by Mr. Coffin to Mr. J. S. Tewks- 
bury of Winthrop, who was Mr. Emerson’s agent in the business. 
He reports in it the arrival of a box of young trees and says that he 
had at the time of writing finished planting, with the help of three 
or four men, the six acres of Mr. Emerson's land, and was now go- 
ing to plant six acres for himself. He was to have twenty thousand 
two year old trees consigned to him and ten thousand one year old, 
but apparently they had not all reached him then. He goes on to 
speak of “the first three boxes which came from Europe, and they 
contained only 7253 trees, said to be 10,000. ‘They were the fir trees 
and so were much larger.” 
This letter proves what had been guessed for many years,— that 
some, if not all, of the trees were imported stock; we know now that 
1253 crossed the ocean to us, quite enough to account for the heaths 
that sprang up in the nursery. The Erica was found there in 1884 
by Miss Susan Coffin and the Calluna in 1886 by Mr. Lawrence 
Coffin, but the size of the Callunas showed that they must have been 
there in 1884, although not distinguished by Miss Coffin and her 
father. Mr. Lawrence Coffin recognized this heath from his previous 
familiarity with its appearance. Six years before, while still a school- 
boy, he had found a single specimen of Calluna on the open com- 
