A STUDY IN PLANT VARIATION 235 



3. Material and Methods 



The material for this study was first collected by the writer in 

 early autumn of 1912, during the period of maturation of the fruit. 

 Those bushes were tagged which showed marked variations in the 

 fruits, and material was taken from them from time to time during 

 the summer of 1913, in order to trace variations in the stem, bud, blossom, 

 leaf, young fruit and mature fruit. As a check to my work, during 

 the late summer and autumn of 1913, 1 tagged other bushes and collected 

 material from them, as indicated above, during the summer of 1914. 

 In this way, I worked in duplicate the second summer, and checked it 

 with my work of the previous year. This should serve to strengthen 

 my conclusions, as my observations were not taken from any one bush 

 that I might arbitrarily select for my type, but rather from two to five 

 tagged bushes. (By so doing, there was reasonable safety that the tags 

 would not be torn off the bushes by the wind, or the rain.) Great diffi- 

 culty was experienced in obtaining fully matured fruits from the bushes, 

 since the natives gathered them just as they began to color and used 

 them for making preserves. Alcohol of 30% strength was used as a 

 kiUing fluid, and 70% was used as a preserving fluid. The material 

 from Long Island and from Nantucket was collected by Dr. Harshberger 

 during August 1913. As this material included only the leaf, stem and 

 immature fruit, no attempt was made to study it as was done in the 

 case of the New Jersey material. 



4. Distribution 



(1) Along the Coast— North and South 

 While this plant is a native of North America, and found only along 

 the Atlantic coast, yet authors do not seem to agree upon its wide dis- 

 tribution. In Gray's New Manual of Botany (16, p. 498) the range 

 is given as extending from Maine to Virginia. Britton (4, p. 524-5) 

 states that it has been found growing on the sandy coasts of New Bruns- 

 wick. Hutchinson (7) in an article in the Botanical Magazine (Decem- 

 ber 1909) confirms Britton's statement. As to its southern extension, 

 Chapman (6, p. 131) records it from Alabama; the basis of this record is, 

 however, a very imperfect specimen collected by Buckley in the Alleghany 

 Mountains, and Sargent in his "Silva of North America" is probably 

 justified in concluding that as no other trace of Prunus maritima has 

 been met with in this now well explored region, the specimen obtained by 

 Buckley merely represents a form of P. Alleghaniensis (Porter). 



