BICKNELL: FERNS AND FLOWERING PLANTS OF NANTUCKET 423 
This is perhaps the blueberry reported by Mr. Kenneth K. 
Mackenzie from New Jersey and Staten Island as Vaccinium 
virgatum Ait. (Torreya 7: 144-145. 1909). Certain New Jersey 
specimens so named in the herbarium of the New York Botanical 
Garden agree closely with the Nantucket plant. They do, indeed, 
convey a suggestion of V. virgatum, but I have seen no northern 
Vaccinium that I could deem as at all referable to the plant of 
the Southern States taken up under Aiton’s name, none, for 
instance that showed the same naked and virgate inflorescence, 
or the cylindric-conic corolla, or the characteristic brown stipitate 
glands on the lower surface of the leaf. Vaccinium atlanticum is 
evidently in closer relationship with V. corymbosum, differing 
obviously however by lower stature, more compact habit, and 
smaller and narrower leaves dark shining green above and ciliolate- 
serrulate on the margins. In the aspect of this blueberry there 
is something both of V. corymbosum and V. angustifolium, and 
were only a single example known it might well be supposed to 
be a hybrid of these species. It appears to have, however, a per- 
fectly natural coastwise range of considerable extent, and I have 
observed nothing in the manner of its occurrence on Nantucket 
to lead me to believe that it is not in itself a valid species. 
It is scarcely probable that this blueberry has not been fre- 
quently collected and, if so, it has perhaps been referred to the 
V. corymbosum var. amoenum of Gray (V. amoenum Ait.), which is 
described as differing from V. corymbosum by bristly ciliate leaves 
bright green on both sides. I have never met with any high bush 
blueberry having just such leaves except one herein presently to 
be described as a possible hybrid between V. corymbosum and V. 
angustifolium. But I find no warrant in Aiton’s description of 
his V. amoenum for thus understanding the shrub he sought to 
define, which he denominated the broad-leaved whortleberry and 
characterized as having leaves pubescent on the veins beneath 
and only subserrulate. A blueberry having just such leaves is 
not uncommon. It is an openly branched shrub, mainly of low 
shaded woodland, the leaves of which are more or less obscurely 
serrulate or some of them entire and which has claims to recogni- 
tion, although perhaps passing into the ordinary V. corymbosum 
of more open grounds. 
