﻿570 Bicknell: Ferns and flowering plants of Nantucket 



Leptilon canadense (L.) Britton. 



Erigeron canadense L. 



A very common weed of old fields and dry open places, bloom- 

 ing in August and September. 

 * Leptilon pusillum (Nutt.) Britton. 



Erigeron pusillus Nutt. 



In December, 1913, it was shown by Dr. Robinson (Rhodora 

 15 : 205-209) that Leptilon pusillum was a valid species, an acute 

 discrimination, and the plant was reported from localities in the 

 Cape Cod region and from Martha's Vineyard, and, as these 

 pages go to press, I am enabled to record it from Nantucket, 

 typical examples, collected during the past season, having been 

 sent to me by Miss Grace Brown Gardner. Miss Gardner writes 

 me that she met with it at a number of localities, and I myself, 

 in a very brief visit to Nantucket late in September, found it to 

 be widely scattered there, inland as well as near the shores. It 

 was also found to be an abundant plant of Martha's Vineyard, 

 fully as numerous, I think, as Leptilon canadense and, like that 

 familiar weed, distributed from the sandy levels along the shores 

 to open hillsides in the interior of the island. Where it mixed 

 freely with L. canadense there were not wanting examples that 

 appeared almost to unite the two species, although no specimens 

 were found that could not be fairly assigned to the one or the 

 other. The purple tips of the involucral bracts which, from 

 observations made on Long Island, I had come to look upon 

 as an absolutely constant character, here proved to be, locally, a 

 very unstable one. In most specimens, however, in which at first 

 sight the purple tips seemed to be absent, it was usually possible 

 to detect them in some of the heads, even if only on the inner 

 bracts. Occasional specimens in which the purple tips were quite 

 wanting showed involucres more or less purple tinged throughout. 

 Late in the season the rays both of this species and of L. canadense 

 often become pink tinged or rose color, and purple tips often appear 

 on some of the involucral bracts of L. canadense. 



