TRbooora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 14. February, 1912. No. 158. 
THE POND FLORA OF CAPE COD. 
Epmunp W. SINNOTT. 
Tue flora of Cape Cod presents many features of interest to the 
botanist, for it includes scores of plants which are unknown or rare 
on the rest of the mainland of Massachusetts and which find their 
best development on the sandy soil of the coastal plain. Botanizing 
anywhere on the peninsula is consequently attended, at least to the 
new-comer, by the formation of many new acquaintances among the 
plants of the beaches, the salt-marshes, the barrens and the swamps, 
which have each their distinct vegetation and their particular interest. 
Perhaps the most fascinating collecting-ground for the field botanist, 
however, is furnished by the hundreds of ponds scattered everywhere 
over the Cape. These range in size from the tiny sloughs in every 
hollow to such large lakes as Wakeby Pond in Mashpee, Nine-Mile 
Pond in Barnstable and Pleasant Lake and Long Pond in Harwich. 
It is in the waters and along the shores of these ponds that are found 
many of the characteristic coastal-plain plants which here reach their 
northern limit in the United States. During the past five summers 
the writer has been fortunate enough to visit nearly all the large 
ponds on Cape Cod and many of the smaller ones in almost every 
town of Barnstable County. The object of the present paper is to 
record certain observations as to the general character of the pond 
vegetation and as to the distribution of the various plants of which 
it is composed. 
The ponds of Cape Cod fall naturally into two main groups: those 
which are well drained and have practically the same level throughout 
the year, and which include all mill-ponds, herring-ponds and others 
