1910] Collins,— Flora of Cape Cod; supplementary Note 9 
feet high, but in this region everything is on a small scale, and they are 
relatively noble trees; a very dense growth of lichens covers the trunks, 
and a few of the larger trees seem to be dying of old age, but most are 
still vigorous. Here and there among them are a few individuals of 
Juniperus virginiana of normal development, and about the central 
open area are some rather dwarf individuals of Populus alba. There 
is quite a depth of vegetable mould under the trees, which seems to be 
favorable to herbaceous plants; Solidago puberula grows here, of 
normal size; it is the only station I have observed in the town. The 
largest tree in Eastham, curiously, is not among these native trees. 
A large and well shaped Ailanthus glandulosa quite overshadows the 
house of Captain Higgins. The captain is the owner of a golden- 
headed cane, presented to him by the Boston Post as the oldest inhabi- 
tant of the town, but when I asked him when the tree was set out, he 
could not tell me. His predecessor in the house, ‘The old captain” 
he called him, had brought it from foreign parts and set it out there, so 
he understood. 
This year I visited an interesting locality in the town, the so-called 
“Sunken Meadow.” ‘This is near the bay shore, separated from it 
by a fairly high, continuous sand dune. The name represents its 
appearance, but is misleading, as the place is evidently a tract of salt 
marsh, which has been cut off from the sea by the formation of the 
dunes, and in which the salt marsh plants are being supplanted by 
those of the uplands. ‘The characteristic fertility of land reclaimed 
from the sea appears here; the hay crop is the best in town, and the 
wild plants have a better nurtured look than elsewhere in Eastham. 
Solidago neglecta, for instance, was common, the plants large and 
luxuriant; I had not met it before in the town. In the middle of the 
“Sunken Meadow” is a pond, on which ice has been cut for many 
years; so that the time when it was connected with the sea must be 
remote. Its appearance is quite that of an ordinary salt marsh pool, 
and the dense coating of algae covering its surface seems to be what is 
usually found in stations of the same appearance; Cladophora ex- 
pansa Kütz., Lyngbya aestuarii (Mert.) Liebm., Enteromorpha species, 
etc.; but when examined more closely, there are found among these 
marine forms such fresh water plants as Spirogyra, Microspora and 
the like. The area now occupied by the salt water plants, including 
land and water forms, is relatively small, and is probably decreasing, 
