﻿556 Bicknell: Ferns and flowering plants of Nantucket 



York and Philadelphia, which was published in the " Preliminary 

 Catalogue of plants within one hundred miles of New York City," 

 compiled by a committee of the Torrey Botanical Club. 

 Xanthium echinatum Murr. 



Primarily a plant of the sea beaches, but not infrequent in 

 waste places away from the shore. It thrives best where saline 

 influences are strongest, and on the exposed ocean front becomes 

 larger and coarser as well as paler in color than when growing 

 along bays and estuaries, and at interior stations where it has 

 chanced to spring up. SeedHngs, May 30, 1909, unfolding their 

 first leaves between the large spreading cotyledons; plants very 

 small July 3, 191 1 ; in full flower and fruit through September. 



COMPOSITAE 



* EUPATORIUM MACULATUM L. 



Rare; in "the Woods" several small scattered groups were 

 just in bloom September 8, 1904; elsewhere it was seen only in a 

 boggy spot east of Miacomet Pond, a single cluster. 



* EUPATORIUM PURPUREUM L. 



At one station only, and only a single group of plants. These 

 grew on a bank in a low open thicket in Shawkemo, towards 

 Quaise, the tallest plants nearly six feet high. When first seen, 

 September 11, 1907, most of the stems had been trampled down 

 by cattle and none had flowered. On June 7, 1908, they were 

 growing up again, the larger stems being eighteen inches high. 

 The plant is typical of E. purpureum as distinguished from E. 

 trifoliatum L. 



EUPATORIUM PERFOLIATUM L. 



Abundant in low grounds. In August and September when 

 the waters of the island are low the boneset may be seen in full 

 flower fringing the high water line around many a pond and pool 

 then well back from the water's edge, its masses of bloom some- 

 times forming an unbroken zone of white around the sandy shores. 

 Evidently its seeds are carried by the wind to the surface of the 

 ponds at the season of high water and are floated in numbers to 

 the shore, finding protection in the flotsam there and a favorable 

 medium for their germination the following season. 



