4 NANTUCKET TREES 



It is not only against wind .force that the is- 

 land vegetation struggles. The wind-driven salt spray 

 is lethal every winter to shrubs along the shore and at 

 hurricane time it sears the foliage across the whole 

 island. Francis V. Perry of the Weather Bureau writes: 

 "The greatest damage, however, resulted from salt deposit 

 on the foliage of the trees ... .This indirect effect has 

 been widely noted. . .as being the most destructive ele- 

 ment, as far as growing things are concerned, and is 

 concomitant with winds of hurricane velocities here on 

 the island." 8 The amazing thing in this connection is 

 the resilience of the seemingly dead trees. Just a 

 month after the June hurricane of 19^5 had browned the 

 foliage, while the dead leaves lay on the ground as in 

 autumn, the branches were tufted with new leaves. A 

 discussion of the damage done by the hurricane of 19^8 

 is pertinent. "...but the big difference that now shows 

 up between the conifer and the broad leaf plant is the 

 ability of the latter to recover. The conifer is badly 

 injured and cannot recover because it does not have ad- 

 ventitious buds to start out like the broad leaf plants. 

 Even those broad leaf plants that were so badly injured 

 that none of the fundamental buds lived have now de- 

 veloped fairly good leaves. The leaves are irregular, 

 .they are not where leaves belong, but nevertheless they 

 are leaves. They are forming food and buds that will 

 carry the plants, we hope, through a winter. Whether 

 or not the plants are going to be able in these cases 

 to develop buds that are strong enough to stand the 

 winter, and at the same time feed the trunk and the 

 roots, only time can tell." 49 



Evidence for forests or at least tree cover on 

 Nantucket since the glacial age is found buried in peat 

 bogs and scattered through historical records. 



Shaler, in a report upon the geology of Nantucket, 

 shows a figure of 'tree stumps which had been buried in a 

 submerged swamp on the north shore. He writes: "i am in- 

 clined to believe that when this island was first settled 

 the greater part of its surface, at least the portion of 

 the area north of the south plains, was covered with a 

 forest growth which afforded some architectural timbers." 41 



