NANTUCKET TREES 25 



20 Orange Street there is a spreading English oak, 

 Quercus Robur , var. vedunculata Ehrh. , and there are a 

 few small specimens of English oak at the Coleman place 

 now owned by the Blairs. 



One must go to Coskata to see Nantucket oaks at 

 their best. Here the ground space under the white oak 

 trees is so extended as to give an entirely distinct 

 flora under the dense shade. Here also the black oak 

 group, including scarlet, red and black oaks is abundant. 

 Bicknell measured one scarlet oak, Quercus coccinea 

 Muench. , which was 41 inches in circumference, 1 foot 

 above the base. He found even stouter black oaks, 

 Quercus velutina Lam. The black oak is the most abundant 

 species at Coskata but it brings confusion to the novice 

 in tree studies as at Coskata the species has two di- 

 verse forms. The ordinary form has leaves with broad 

 lobes and shallow identations; the other has such deeply 

 cut leaves that the tree may be mistaken for the scarlet 

 oak. Both forms have, however, the characteristic heavy, 

 almost leathery leaf with soft pubescence. 4 



It is not only in the isolated forests that oaks 

 are found. Other species hold their own on the sand and 

 on the moors. Behind the dune ridge at Third Point, 

 Coatue, the post oak, Quercus stellata Wang., makes a 

 sprawling barricade, its branches half buried in the ■ 

 sand. There is also a row of wind-battered post- oaks 

 behind the dunes near Eel Point. Two other species of 

 oak form the scrub growth of the moors. The true scrub 

 oak, Quercus ilici folia Wang., is hardy enough even 

 to grow a second crop of leaves when defoliated by a 

 caterpillar plague. It grows from 1 foot to 10 feet in 

 height and, in the heavy scrub, many of the trees must 

 be of great age. The land of the present Sankaty Golf 

 Course is said to have been covered with a growth of 

 scrub oak. 30 J. H. Holmes of Nantucket has reported that 

 when the course was laid out many stumps were pulled 

 from the ground so large that the hooks of the cater- 

 pillar tractor were broken. A pile of stumps as large 

 as a house was burned, and another pile supplied fire- 

 places for a long time after. 22 To an observer from 

 the road the scrub oak cover is misleading, especially 

 when one watrhes deer travel in effortless leaps over 



