190 Rhodora [NOVEMBER 
the woods over an irregular area some twenty-seven paces in length 
and twenty-four paces in greatest breadth. No garden spot could 
show a more perfectly continuous bed of color than here lies hidden 
among the pines in September when the heather is in full bloom. 
On three sides it is well screened by thick woodland growth, but from 
one direction no alert botanist in passing would fail to catch glimpses 
of its rosy glow through openings among the trees while yet eight or 
ten rods away. Of the few outlying patches the most distant is about 
fifty paces from the favored spot; another, thirty-five paces distant, 
lies quite outside the grove-like tract of pines in the adjoining scrub 
oak. In September, 1912, it was found that this patch had been dis- 
covered and much of it had been torn up and left lying about to die. 
The main growth, still undisturbed, had evidently been established for 
many years. The larger pines that gave it partial shade were from 
twenty to nearly thirty feet in height. When discovered, on September 
24, 1909, it was in full flower; on October 10 fresh flowers were still 
appearing but the mass of bloom had lost its bright color of two weeks 
before. Few other kinds of plants grew close about it; the most note- 
worthy were Cypripedium acaule, Hypopitys lanuginosa, Monotropa 
uniflora, Vaccinium pennsylvanicum, Epigaea repens, Pyrola rotundi- 
folia, Trientalis americana and Carex pennsylvanica. 
This Martha’s Vineyard heather appeared so different from the 
Nantucket plant — more straggling in habit with shorter less tapering 
racemes of deeper pink and somewhat different flowers and, in effect, 
glabrous foliage — that it gave me the instant impression of being 
quite like a different species. Nor was this impression an altogether 
misleading one. The plant is indeed true Calluna vulgaris, that is to 
say, the typical glabrate form of the species. The Nantucket Cal- 
luna, on the other hand, proves to be the markedly pubescent form of 
the plant which by some European botanists has been esteemed a 
distinct variety or even a valid species. It is the Calluna vulgaris var. 
pubescens of Koch (Syn. ed. 2: 547, 1844). 
It does not clearly appear from the specimens examined how worthy 
of distinction from the more glabrous type this pubescent heather may 
be, or whether the minute pubescence of its younger parts and some- 
times even of the leaves, is to be taken as evidence that the two plants 
readily interblend. The glabrate plant appears to be the prevailing 
and more widely diffused form in Europe. In the collections at the 
New York Botanical Garden I find specimens from England, France, 
