BICKNELL: FERNS AND FLOWERING PLANTS OF NANTUCKET 383 
discovered that there are some palpable misfits with that species, 
variable though it be. Certain specimens indeed clearly raise 
the question whether there may not be other species, at present 
undistinguished from R. virginiana, that belong to the island’s 
flora. The final answer may well be an affirmative one, yet it can 
scarcely precede a more critical study of the subject than has yet 
been attempted. 
One of these nonconforming roses has already been discussed 
in Part VIII of this paper (Bull. Torrey Club 38: 450-451. 1911). 
Another, collected at Wauwinet and in Shawkemo, is somewhat 
intermediate between R. virginiana and R. carolina; Dr. Rydberg, 
who has examined the specimens, surmises that it may be a hybrid. 
Yet another rose, collected only in Tom Never’s Swamp, differs 
from R. virginiana by densely bristly new shoots, straight and 
slender infrastipular spines, more obovate leaflets of a livelier green 
color, shining on the upper surface and bright green beneath, the 
common rachis often bearing numerous stalked glands, the flowers 
solitary or few together. Dr. Rydberg has determined this to be 
the Rosa obovata of Rafinesque (R. Jaxa Lindley), a rose that has 
missed recognition by later botanists and the exact status of which 
remains to be determined. On Nantucket it was collected June 15, 
I9II, not then in flower; it was subsequently found on Long Beach, 
Long Island, in full bloom. On both occasions it was not doubted 
that it was a different rose from R. virginiana which grew close 
about it, its affinity appearing to be rather with R. nitida Willd. 
Another ambiguous Nantucket rose, collected on Coatue, 
agrees with the preceding in its densely bristly stems, but differs 
in its strong and broad-based hooked prickles, more glandular 
hypanthium and narrower leaflets. It is such a plant as might be 
predicted from a crossing of R. obovata with R. virginiana, and, 
quite possibly, such a parentage may have been its actual origin. 
*LATHYRUS LATIFOLIUS L. 
Waste ground, Prospect Hill, August 3, 1915, Miss Grace 
Brown Gardner; a cluster in full flower in the south part of the 
town June 23, 1910. 
VICIA ANGUSTIFOLIA (L.) Reichard. 
Plants are frequent whose leaf characters correspond to those 
of the var. segetalis (Thuillier) Koch. 
