﻿28 BiCKNELL : Ferns and flowering plants of Nantucket 



TrIENTALIS AMERICANA (PcrS.) Pufsh. 



Common in shaded thickets and having a very brief flowering 

 period. First flowers June i, 1909, few flowers remaining June 9; 

 no flowers seen in any year after the middle of June. 

 * Glaux maritima L. 



In Rhodora (4: 215-216. 1902) Dr. Fernald, publishing his 

 description of Glaux maritima var. ohtusifolia, attributes the plant 

 to Nantucket— "Aug. 18, 1878 {Faxon) r At that time there 

 was no reason to suppose that the Faxon specimens thus cited 

 might have become incorrectly labeled, but it is now thought that 

 quite possibly such a mishap may have occurred. Mr. Floyd 

 has acquainted me with what is known of the history of these 

 Faxon specimens. They were contained in a bundle of unmounted 

 plants collected by Mr. Faxon which, after his death, were turned 

 over to the Gray herbarium. The specimens were folded in a 

 sheet containing no label but bearing on the outside the pencilled 

 record in Mr. Faxon's hand "Nantucket, Aug. 18, 1878." The 

 bundle was made up of duplicates from the Faxon herbarium which, 

 however, contained no corresponding specimens of this Glaux 

 although it did possess examples of the plant collected at Plym- 

 outh, Massachusetts, only one week before the day when Mr. Faxon 

 collected on Nantucket. These facts make it appear not at all 

 improbable that, by some mischance, duplicates of the Plymouth 

 collection had been passed along in a sheet that had been in- 

 advertently labeled or, perhaps, previously used for some Nan- 

 tucket specimen. At all events the Nantucket record must rest 

 under reservations unless established by the future discovery of 

 the plant on the island. 



There is an earlier record of this species from Nantucket which 

 is more certainly an erroneous one. The name appears in Mrs. 

 Owen's first list of Nantucket plants, which was published in 

 Godfrey's "Island of Nantucket," etc., 1882. It was omitted 

 from her completed list of 1888. An explanation of this is given 

 by Mr. Floyd who tells me that in a letter received by him from 

 Mrs. Owen, dated May 12, 1909, the writer declares, "as for 

 Glmix maritima I repudiate utterly at this time the insertion of it 

 in the Godfrey catalogue." 



By all this it appears that there is no unquestioned evidence 



