﻿36 Bicknell: Ferns and flowering plants of Nantucket 



surface hoary pubescent; leaves dark green above, mostly ovate 

 to elliptic or oval, rounded at base, the petioles white tomentose. 

 * Apocynum sibiricum J acq. ? 



Scattered along a thicket bordering the west side of Tom 

 Never's Pond. Inflorescence just appearing June 24, 1910; first 

 flowers July 2, 1912. Plants becoming at least 6 dm. tall, pale 

 green and glaucous, glabrous throughout, even the unfolding 

 leaves showing no trace of pubescence; leaves narrowly oblong to 

 ovate-lanceolate, acute, becoming 14 cm. long, rounded at the 

 base, short-petioled, or the lower subsessile and cordate; corolla 

 small, creamy white, the short lobes obtuse; calyx-lobes elongated, 

 linear-lanceolate, tapering and flexuous, ciliolate towards the end 

 when young. 



Referred to A . sibiricum in the broad sense in which the name 

 seems to be commonly employed. It is scarcely possible to 

 believe, however, that this Nantucket dogbane belongs to the 

 same species as the diffuse small-leaved plant of gravelly river 

 shores (^4. album Greene), now merged with A. sibiricum, nor 

 can it be referred without much reservation to typical A . sibiricum 

 {A. hypericifolium Ait.), an erect, often tall glaucous species with 

 cordate-clasping mostly oblong and obtuse leaves. It is quite 

 possible that it may represent some one of a number of species 

 recently announced by Professor Greene (Leaflets II: 169-174. 

 1912). 



ASCLEPIADACEAE 



ASCLEPIAS TUBEROSA L. 



So far as known the butterfly weed has never been other than a 

 rare plant on Nantucket, although it is locally common on 

 Martha's Vineyard, and abundant on Chappaquiddick Island. 

 The herbarium of the Maria Mitchell Association contains a 

 flowering specimen collected near the old mill July 17, 1896, and 

 one from the Friends Burying Ground, July, 1889. Here on 

 June 19, 1908, grew a solitary tuft of eight stems all bearing 

 clusters of flower buds. Of late years it seems to have been 

 found nowhere else on Nantucket than at this station. 



* ASCLEPIAS PURPURASCENS L. 



Capaum Pond, July 10, 1912, — a group of eleven plants in 

 full flower growing about midway on the face of the bluff or high 



