4 



10 Bicknell: Ferns and flowering plants of Nantucket 



pendently established as to merit the specific rank accorded it by 



Muhlenberg. 



Its habit is often erect and little climbing and it seems never 

 to acquire the height and strong development of typical rotiindi- 

 folia. The stem is more or less quadrangular, often definitely so 

 throughout, and becomes numerously short-, zigzag-branched 

 above. The leaves are narrower than in 7'ottmdifolia and less 

 cordate, if at all so ; the stem-leaves rarely if ever cordate-orbicu- 

 lar and broader than long, but ovate or somewhat triangular- 

 ovate ; those of the branches very small and numerous and often 

 ovate-lanceolate from a truncate base, or even with slightly con- 

 cave sides above a somewhat dilated base, showing an approach 

 to the fiddle-shaped leaves of Smilax tamnoides. The leaves are 

 also of a somewhat different texture from those of S, rottmdifolia^ 

 firmer and more membranous and more shining beneath, the three 

 primary veins more prominent and more or less roughened with 

 cartilaginous or spinulose processes which extend along the petioles 

 and sometimes also around the entire margin of the leaf. The 

 petioles are shorter than those of 5". rohindifolia^ while the peduncles 

 are longer — longer than the petioles in the one case, shorter in 

 the other. Not many specimens were found in flower, however, and 

 an extended comparison of these characters Is not here possible. 



Note. — Sniilax tanmoides'L., was attributed to Nantucket in Mrs. 



F 



Owen's catalogue on the authority of Mr. Dame, and the sup- 

 posed occurrence of this species in New England has been based 

 upon this record. Not meeting with the plant in my earlier ex- 

 plorations, I searched carefully for it on repeated occasions and 

 finally became convinced that it had never occurred on Nantucket 

 and that Smilax quadrangidaris had been mistaken for it. This 

 conclusion has been confirmed by Professor Fernald, who writes 

 me on the subject as follows : '*In the herbarium of the New 

 England Botanical Club is a sheet of sterile branches of the Dame 

 material which was listed by Mrs, Owen as Smilax tamnoides. 

 There is a smaller twig in the Gray Herbarium. Both sheets 



rotmidifolia 



They 



have the quadrangular branches and the spinulose-margined teeth 

 and I think there is no doubt that they are, as you supposed, the 

 var. quadrangidaris. Some of the leaves are fiddle-shaped and 



