A Lm 
Rhodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 15. November, 1913. No. 179. 
THE HEATHER, CALLUNA VULGARIS, ON MARTHA’S 
VINEYARD. 
Evcene P. BICKNELL. 
So much has been made of the heather growing wild on Nantucket 
that a sort of distinction has come to that island by reason of this 
plant. As well might the plural form be used — of these plants — 
for, in addition to the better known common Heather or ling (Calluna 
vulgaris (L.) Salisb.) two other heaths are found on Nantucket — 
the Bell Heather (Erica cinerea L.) and the Cross-leaved Heath 
(Erica tetralix L.). In respect of the Calluna it is to be reported that 
the island of Martha’s Vineyard has equal if not greater claim to 
honor. Yet so little had this been suspected that when I chanced 
upon the heather growing there, in far greater profusion and in alto- 
gether wilder surroundings than on Nantucket, it seemed by first 
impression almost like an intrusion on a prerogative of the more 
seaward island. 
Among the botanical elect of Nantucket its heather secrets have 
long been held in loyal reserve. But for this circumspection it is 
doubtful if any heather at all would be growing wild there today. It 
cannot be thought ungracious therefore if I particularize here no more 
fully as to the Martha’s Vineyard locality than to report it as being in 
pitch pine woods in the southeastern quarter of the island. 
An obscure woodland road passes the spot not many rods distant 
and an abandoned farm house, not yet a ruin, occupies an old clearing 
not very far away, but the general surroundings are quite uninhabited 
tracts of scrub oak, and woodland of oak and pine, traversed by 
sandy cartways and remote from any highway or any cultivated 
ground. The main growth of the heather carpets the level floor of 
