18 Rhodora [JANUARY 
ORONTIUM IN BARNSTABLE COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS. 
Joun MuvunpocH, JR. 
MENTION was made at the June meeting of the New England 
Botanical Club by Mr. F. S. Collins of a specimen of Orontium aquati- 
cum which he had collected for the club herbarium in Provincetown. 
This reminded the writer of an earlier collection of his own in the same 
town, and led him to look up the records of the species on Cape Cod. 
There are in the club herbarium specimens of E. and C. E. Faxon, 
from Truro, August 13, 1890, and of Charles A. Davis, from Province- 
town, September 28, 1912. In the Gray Herbarium is a duplicate of 
the Faxon specimen, and no others from Barnstable County. The 
only other specimen from southeastern Massachusetts is one of C. H. 
Morss, from Middleboro. On a Decoration Day trip to Provincetown 
in 1904, the writer collected flowering specimens. In June, 1913, he 
collected fruiting material, and in August, 1913, made further observa- 
tions, in the same region. Orontium thus seems to be rather an un- 
common plant in this section, and a few notes on its habits might not 
be out of place. 
Practically the whole of Provincetown consists of sand dunes. For 
a mile or more back of the village there is a low forest growth made up 
largely of pitch pine and oaks. The hollows among these wooded 
dunes are occupied by shallow ponds, some of which dry out com- 
pletely during the summer. In four out of the six or seven seen by the 
writer, Orontium is very abundant. Up to the middle of June, it is 
the only conspicuous aquatic in these ponds. Later in the season 
water lilies and rushes also appear in considerable quantities. At 
blossoming time, in the latter part of May, the yellow spadices stand 
up plainly above the water, well warranting the common name of 
Golden Club, and the leaves are also well developed. By the middle 
of June, the fruit is ripe. The spadices have now bent over, leaving 
only occasionally an arch above the surface. The leaves, contrary 
to the description in the Manual, stand erect like those of the Pickerel 
Weed. Indeed, I have at a distance mistaken both Orontium for 
Pontederia, and the reverse. At the end of August, the fruit has 
practically disappeared. In the dry ponds, the leaves stand stiffly 
over the mud, while the roots are buried deep in the sand beneath. 
