IRbofcora 



JOURNAL OF 



THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 



Vol. 18. February, 1916. No. 206. 



PLANTS COLLECTED ON MATINICUS TSLAND, MAINE, IN 

 LATE FALL, 1915. 



W. L. McAtee. 



While on official business for the United States Biological Survey, 

 the writer spent two weeks (October 26 to November 7, 1915) on 

 Matinicus Island, Maine. Weather conditions hampering the work 

 planned, much of the time was employed in collecting plants, and 

 specimens were taken of all vascular species observed. 



Matinicus Island, about 2 miles long and of varying width, has an 

 area of 720 acres. It is 18 miles out from Rockland, and appears to 

 have a greater variety of vegetation than any of the other islands that 

 far from the mainland. The shores are mostly rock bound, but there 

 are three sand beaches extensive enough to furnish favorable habitat 

 for sand-loving plants. Although the general surface of the island is 

 well elevated, there are numerous bogs and marshes, and at least two 

 extensive deposits of peat, sections of both of which are exposed at 

 the shore. 



The plants that fix the character of the landscape on Matinicus are 

 the abundant spruces, and the low grasses (Agrostis, Poa) that so 

 largely make up the splendid turf that covers most of the unwooded 

 areas. Shrubs that are almost omnipresent in the woods are blue- 

 berry, huckleberry, and bunchberry, and outside, bayberry and 

 juniper. Certain situations have very characteristic assemblages of 

 plants, as the sandy beaches with Ammophila, Atriplcx, and Salsola, 

 the gravelly beaches with Mcrtensia maritima, Arenaria peploides 

 robusta, and Polygonum foivleri, the boulder beaches or rocky shores 

 with Lathyrus maritimus, Oenothera muricata, Coclopleurum, Ligusti- 



