26 NANTUCKET TREES 



the growth. Only by struggling through the tangled mass 

 on foot is its depth realized. Scrub oak close at hand 

 has ornamental value. Its brown blossom tassels in May 

 seem a new color note among flowers; its grey-green, 

 angular leaves and tiny acorns make it a plant that might 

 well be cultivated by landscape gardeners. Companion to 

 the scrub oak is the dwarf chestnut oak, Quercus Drinoides 

 var. rufescens Rehd. The straight species, Quercus 

 Drinoides Villd., is seldom found on Nantucket but the 

 difference between the species and its variety would seem 

 a mere quibble to any but a botanist. This chestnut oak 

 is much more of a dwarf than the scrub oak. It makes a 

 luxuriant green cover in hollows of the moorland but 

 leaves the more exposed stretches to the huckleberry. 



In completing the oak genus with the dwarf chest- 

 nut oak, we find ourselves so close to the ground that it 

 seems proper to mention two other dwarf shrubs: the 

 bearberry, Arctostavhylos Uva-ursi (L.) Spreng., and the 

 evergreen heath, Corema Conradii Torr. One realizes on 

 breaking the stem of the bearberry that it is a woody 

 plant. It is a trailer whose long runners are doing 

 their best to carpet any bare ground on the moorlands. 

 Its shining evergreen leaves form a background for dainty 

 shell-pink bloom in May and for crimson berries in Sep- 

 tember. Corema is a true dwarf shrub, each plant a close- 

 built cushion spreading from a central woody stem scarce- 

 ly a foot high. Its close evergreen turf in the Tom 

 Nevers region gives little hint of the great age of the 

 individual plants. A special interest attaches to Corema. 

 It is a so-called relic plant... one of those which are 

 believed to have flourished earlier all along the ancient 

 coastal plain from the Carolinas to Labrador. Fernald 

 writes of this group: "of greater interest are the 

 coastal plain species, because they represent in New 

 England, eastern Canada and Newfoundland a relic of the 

 extensive flora which during the late Tertiary migrated 

 northward along the then highly elevated continental 

 shelf and at the drowning of the shelf were left as rel- 

 ics at isolated points." 12 Today Corema is found only 

 on such persisting high spots as the New Jersey Pine 

 Barrens, Nantucket, Mount Desert and Newfoundland. 



