242 Rhodora [December 



It may be presumed that Doctor Harshberger, when he made his 

 discovery, was limited to only a very hasty survey of the surroundings. 

 His experienced eye in matters of plant association could not other- 

 wise have failed to note in nearby community with the Labrador 

 pines other conifers even more widely divorced from their natural 

 habitats. Pinus sylvestris of northern Europe is there, and Pinus 

 massonia?ia of China, growing among the native thickets, and with 

 them are examples of our northern Picca canadensis, and the Rocky 

 Mountain Picca pungens, besides, I am quite sure, other evergreens 

 not now clearly recalled, as well as several kinds of exotic deciduous 

 trees, all of which, including the Labrador pines have long been listed 

 in nurseryman's catalogues. The largest of the Labrador pines are 

 quite obviously of no greater age than their associates from other 

 climes, and their group, which includes some smaller trees that must 

 have sprung up naturally from seed, is doubtless of contemporary 

 origin with a conspicuous and now well-matured and too closely 

 grown planting of ornamental evergreens that tell their own tale. 

 And their story may be amplified. A life long resident of the island 

 gave me the information that, many years before, someone, whose 

 name I had then no care to note, having an interest in that part of 

 the island and in trees as well, planted there a large number of differ- 

 ent kinds of trees, especially evergreens. My informant had it that a 

 hundred different kinds had been set out there, although I saw no 

 evidence of any quite so ambitious an attempt at arboriculture. I 

 recall that some of these trees were being sacrificed to the construction 

 of a tennis court which, as laid out, would separate the Labrador 

 pines from the group of larger species, thus giving them a sort of 

 isolation and appearance of nativity. 



It may be not impossible that the group of trees described by 

 Professor Harshberger is not identical with the one known to me. I 

 do not, indeed, seem to recognize his wind swept trees near an ocean 

 bluff. But the bluff, or low bank such as it is at Wauwinet, is at no 

 great distance, and if there are really two groups of these pines their 

 source of origin can scarcely have been other than the same. It does 

 not seem to follow that any great phytogeographical import can 

 attach to the fact that the Labrador pine grows on Nantucket, or 

 that its presence there affords any just grounds for speculation on 

 the mysteries of plant distribution. 



New York City. 



