158 Rhodora [July 



grows in its characteristic habitat, a cold spring-brook. And Mrs. 

 Graves was absolutely positive that, just as they were boarding the 

 train at Tusket, a woman, who drove up in an automobile, had in 

 her hand a bunch of the so-called Plymouth Gentian, Sabatia Kennedy- 

 ana Fernald, 1 the most beautiful wild flower of the Cape Cod region. 

 We should, perhaps, have been content with our collections of the 

 day and not have insisted on pressing Mrs. Graves with the illogical 

 query: "Why in the world didn't you ask where she got it?" Ob- 

 viously, it would have been useless, for the train bad started. But 

 that unexplained Sabatia haunted us and we could not drive it out 

 of our minds. 



Two days were necessary to get the presses in order before leaving, 

 on August 10, to examine the coastal sands of Queens County, our 

 headquarters for two days being at Port Mouton (everywhere in 

 Nova Seotia pronounced "Port Mut-toon"). Promptly after dinner 

 Graves, Long and Linder started for the dunes at Central Port 

 Mouton, bringing back such novelties as J uncus bufoniui, var. halo- 

 pkihu, Euphorbia polygonifolia and, from a bushy pasture, a greater 

 variety of Crataegus than we had yet seen. They also had found 

 again Polygonum Rati and Sagina nodosa which we had seen in the 

 damp sands at Villagcdale. Bissell and I were having better luck. 

 We had gone to the mouth of Broad River where, until a violent 

 storm of the preceding winter tore it away, a great range of dunes 

 had long existed. We found the sand-plants the others were getting 

 and in one strip of brackish sands a few plants of the rare Rumez 

 viaritimus, var. fueginuM (Phil.) Dusen,- formerly known from Sable 

 Island and the Magdalen Islands but not from the mainland of Nova 

 Seotia. A beautiful little boggy pocket in the midst of hideously 

 burned and charred spruee woods gave us some of the coastal plain 

 specialties we had been getting in Yarmouth County: Schizaea 

 pusilla, Thelypieris simulata, Juncus subcaudatus, Ilex glabra and the 

 two Bartonias of sloughs. 



Next morning we all went to the dunes at Central Port Mouton, 

 hoping by further exploration to add some speeies we had expected to 

 see in such a habitat, but the most interesting discovery was to find 

 that the typical dune species, Car ex rilicea, was quite absent from the 



1 Khodoha, xviii. 1.50, t. 121 (1016). 



2 See St. John, Rhodora, xvii. 81 (.1915). 



