BicKNELL : Ferns and flowering plants of Nantucket 21 



leaves were unusually small, sometimes only 3-5 cm. long through- 

 out. In richer soils the shrub is taller with larger leaves and fruit, 

 the latter becoming 18 mm. long with a stout beak 2-3.5 cm. in 

 length, 



Betula populifolia Marsh. 



Rare near the town but well scattered locally over the island, 

 mostly very small trees and none perhaps over 8 or 10 feet high : 

 Shawkemo ; Taupawshas Swamp ; Quaise ; Polpis ; along the 

 north side of Saul's Hills ; Gibbs' Swamp; Tom Never's Swamp ; 

 west of Tristram Coffin's ; head of Long Pond. 



Note. — Some small stunted trees of the European birches, 

 Bctiila piibescens Ehrh. and Betula pendtda Roth, grow in a low, 

 half-swampy thicket west of the town, together with several kinds 

 of introduced oaks and native trees. This thicket adjoins the tract 

 of land enclosed by cockspur thorns set out by William Henry 

 Gardner about the year 1830, as recorded by Mrs. Owen (Cat p. 

 25). The lot or thicket where these introduced oaks and birches 

 now grow must have been utilized at one time as a sort of nursery, 

 but either the trees were planted at a considerably later date than 

 the thorn trees or else have been of very slow growth. Whatever 

 their history, they have long been wholly neglected and have now 

 united in a thick and tangled growth with the native trees and 

 shrubbery, appearing as if they also were part of the natural vege- 

 tation of the region. 



*Alnus NOVEBORACENSis Britton, 



Two small shrubs grow on the western side of Capaum Pond 

 and one on the south shore of Sachacha Pond; a single stout 

 shrub grew just back of the shore on the east side of the lower 

 harbor at Monomoy in 1904, but in 1907 was found to have disap- 

 peared. 



The type of Alnus iioveboracensis seems to be an aberrant form 

 of a very common shrub which, on the one hand, almost unites 

 with, or perhaps hybridizes with, Alnus rugosa (DuRoi) Koch and^ 

 on the other, approaches very close to Alnus glaiica Michx. With 

 the latter it seems to have been quite generally referred to Alnus 

 incafia (L.) Willd. of Europe, "which, in my view, cannot properly 

 be regarded as the same. The European shrub is, however, a 



