﻿BicKNELL : Ferns and flowering plants of Nantucket 31 



inches high July ii, 1912; still in flower September 19, 1907; no 

 flowers remaining September 16, 1899. 



In the herbarium of Columbia University is a specimen from 

 Nantucket collected by T. A. Greene in 1827, which is doubtless 

 the oldest existing specimen of any Nantucket plant. It is 

 labeled in Dr. Gray's hand " S. stellaris, Torr. & Gray Fl. N.Am." 



The species was first recorded from Nantucket by Professor 

 Edward Hitchcock in his "Report," edition of 1833, under the 

 name Sahhatia stellaris Pursh. It was again reported by Mr. 

 Oakes in Hovey's Magazine for May, 1841 (7: 180) where it 

 was referred to Sahhatia campanulata Torr. {S. gracilis Salisb.), 

 having been again collected by Dr. James W. Robbins "in 

 moist hollows in Squam, in Mr. Greene's locality, Sept., 1829." 

 Dr. Gray, in Synoptical Flora, confirmed this determination of 

 Oakes, referring to the Nantucket plant as Sahhatia gracilis Salisb., 

 "an ambiguous form." 



The Nantucket plant, while in many examples quite typical, 

 is mostly reduced in size and little branched, with the leaves in 

 many cases relatively short and broad, frequently, indeed, exactly 

 oval throughout, or the lower ones ovate. Precisely similar forms 

 are frequent on Long Island, where the perfectly typical plant is 

 locally common. It is interesting to note that Sahhatia stellaris 

 Pursh occurs on Martha's Vineyard. 



The specific distinctness of Sahhatia campanulata (L.) Torr. 

 from S. stellaris Pursh seems to be not well supported by the 

 characters that have been mainly relied upon for its separation. 

 No points of difference that are at all constant are to be found in 

 the more or the less divided style, the longer or the shorter calyx 

 lobes, the broader or the narrower leaves. Actually all of these 

 differences are unstable in a very marked degree. Much less so 

 are two other characters which, indeed, seem to be almost always 

 sharply distinctive although they have been little emphasized 

 in descriptions. In S. stellaris the main stem leaves, broadest at 

 or above the middle, are distinctly narrowed to the base and the 

 usually acute apex, and the entire plant, unless carefully pressed, 

 readily turns black in drying. Sahhatia campanulata, on the con- 

 trary, shows little or no discoloration on the herbarium sheet, and 

 the commonly obtuse leaves, linear, linear-oblong, oval or, low 



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