﻿FLOWERING PLANTS OF NaNTUCKET 345 



sandy places and in pure sand. The glabrate plants are not 

 common and are found in more protected situations among open 

 growths of scrub pines. Their stems are shining and sometimes 

 quite glabrous, their leaves hispidulous ciliate on the margins 

 and on the midrib beneath, var. puncticulosum (Michx.) T. & G. 

 Galium triflorum Michx. 



Frequent in shaded thickets on the eastern side of the island, 

 especially in Squam, Shimmo and Polpis. In full flower and with 

 young fruit August 13, 1906. As elsewhere two forms may be 

 distinguished, the leaves of one narrow and tapering, of the other 

 broadened and rounded or abruptly narrowed to the cuspidate 

 apex. 



Galium Clayton i Michx. 



Common in low grounds flowering from the middle of June 

 through September. 



The ordinary form of this bedstraw is a small plant of damp 

 or wet open places often where the soil loses much of its moisture 

 or becomes quite dry in summer. In partial shade, or in very 

 wet situations, which encourage a vigorous growth throughout 

 the season, it comes to an enhanced phase of development that 

 gives it quite the aspect of being a different species. Nowhere 

 have I seen this larger state of the plant of more pronounced 

 character than on Nantucket. 



The more common smaller form of the plant is very scabrous 

 and of a pale green color, not readily discoloring when pressed; 

 the leaves are often firm with revolute margins, those of the stems 

 sometimes reduced to fours and only 8-10 mm. long and 1-2 mm, 

 wide ; the minute flowers of three- or, not rarely, four-parted corol- 

 las, are in pedunculate clusters of three on short finally divergent 

 pedicels 2-5 mm. long, and the fruit is i mm. or less in diameter. 

 The larger form is only slightly scabrellous and is thin leaved and 

 deeper green in color, turning dark or black on the herbarium sheet. 

 In its luxuriance of growth along ditches and in very wet spots 

 it sometimes forms close masses 6 dm. or more in height, from 

 which it is possible to disentangle individual plants as much as 

 13 dm. in length. The leaves, in whorls of six on the stems and 

 four on the branches, are narrowed into evident petioles, and be- 



