102 Rhodora [JUNE 
the various editions of Britton's Manual and Britton and Brown's 
Flora, the range is given as * Eastern Mass. to Penn. & Fla." From 
a purely geographical point of view, “Eastern Mass.” is correct for 
Nantucket, though possibly misleading as implying a wider range. I 
have been unable, however, to find any Massachusetts station re- 
corded outside of Nantucket. 
On October first, 1913, I was making my last collecting trip of the 
season, in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, and I came upon a large colony of 
the Opuntia, thoroughly established. It was about a mile from the 
settled part of the town, and grew on both sides of the road for two 
hundred feet or more, extending back into the fields. The plants 
were nearly prostrate, merely projecting slightly; the flowering season 
was past, but there was abundance of the fruit, sometimes as many as 
five fruits on a single segment. It appeared to occupy the ground so 
thoroughly that no other vegetation but a scanty growth of grass was 
found among it. The fruit, though well formed and containing hard 
seeds, was only about half the size of what I had seen on plants of the 
same species in Bermuda, two months before. 
There was a “No Trespass” sign near by; usually a botanist pays 
no attention to such signs, but in this case it had some interest, as it 
gave the name of the owner of the property, George W. Lawrence, and 
I wrote to Mr. Lawrence, asking for information in regard to the plant. 
He very kindly replied as follows: — “I have consulted an old lady 
(87 years of age) who used to live in the old Hickman house, as we call 
it, when she was a girl, and she says, the prickly pear cactus was there 
at that time; she does not know where it might have come from. I 
have owned the place since Nov. 1908, and the man I bought it of has 
just died. The ‘No Trespass’ sign was to keep the boys away from 
the fruit. An old gentleman (79) a native, says it was there when he 
was a small boy. The old Hickman family used to have beautiful 
flowers, so my wife says, and she used to visit at the old house when 
she was very young. Probably the plant was brought there some- 
time, as it is not found anywhere else in town." ! 
I referred to my discovery at a meeting of the New England Botani- 
cal Club, in the hope of hearing of other stations, and was again fortu- 
nate, for Mr. C. F. Batchelder remembered having seen it, and at my 
request he notes the following particulars: — “In September, 1876, I 
1 Later Mr. Lawrence wrote me ‘‘Mr. Nye, our postmaster, tells me there is another 
little patch of the ‘cactus’ up by Higgins Pond, about two miles from my place.” 
