﻿FLOWERING PLANTS OF NaNTUCKET 333 



This plant is evidently introduced on Nantucket and its 

 native habitat is unknown. Whatever may be its history there 

 seems little reason to doubt that it has been included in the species 

 Solanum nigrum. Nevertheless I have not found that its char- 

 acters properly correspond with those of any one of the numerous 

 varieties that have been described of this wide-ranging and poly- 

 morphic species. Among the extensive series at the New York 

 Botanical Garden the following are to be referred to 5. peregrinum: 



Montana: Columbia Falls, September 17, 1894, R. S. Williams. 

 Florida: Pensacola, August 6, 1901, A. H. Curtiss, "No. 6863, 

 Second distribution of plants of the Southern States," labeled 

 "5. nigrum var. Dillenii," a very different plant. Switzerland: 

 August 28, 1897, S. L. Clarke. 



Solanum nigrum, as now generally accepted, is unmistakably a 

 composite species, and in the subdivision which it must sometime 

 receive the precise apphcation of the collective name will be a 

 matter for very critical determination. The ordinary Nantucket 

 form agrees closely with the description of "true S. nigrum" as 

 understood by Dr. Gray.* From this 5. peregrinum is clearly 

 distinct showing obvious differences throughout — duller green 

 color, coarser pubescence, straighter and less angled stem and 

 branches, shorter and broader, deeply, dentate-lobed leaves, the 

 blades abruptly contracted into longer , petioles, corymbiform 

 instead of umbelliform inflorescence, broader divisions of the 

 corolla, larger anthers, bearded filaments, shorter calyx lobes, 

 larger seeds. 



Comparison of S. peregrinum with the type of S. interior 

 Rydbergt shows it to be quite distinct from that western species. 

 Solanum Dulcamara L. 



Neglected places in the town; cedar thicket at Monomoy; 

 among pines near Miacomet Pond ; the Thorn lot and at several 

 stations on the western side of the island. First flowers June 28„ 

 1912; in full bloom June 15, 1910; late flowers and well fruited 

 September 10, 1907. 

 Ia-cium vulgare (Ait. f.) Dunal. 



Occasional in waste ground and along fences in and near the 



