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Bicknell: Ferns and flowering plants of Nantucket 23 



the pines near Miacomet Pond; on June 17, 1908, it was about 

 ten feet high. (See note under Poptdus tjrmida.) 



QuERCus coccinea Wang. 



A few small trees occur among the pines south of the fair 

 grounds and a single tree at the edge of the pine grove on the 

 Surfside road. On June 12, 1908, this tree was less than ten feet 

 high, the upper parts dead, but, near the base, bearing many widely 

 radiating prostrate branches closely pressing the ground and twelve 

 to twenty-two feet in length ; on some of these the terminal branch- 

 lets were so slenderly elongated as to appear trailing and theabun- 

 dant foliage of erect or ascending branchlets gave the appearance 

 of a low growth of scrub-oak completely surrounding the tree. 



This oak was seen nowhere else than at the two points men- 

 tioned and it seems very doubtful if it is native to the island. 



QuERCus velutina Lam. 



Of the few arborescent oaks native to Nantucket this and the 

 white oak are still common enough to show that they must have 

 been among the prevailing trees before the wooded parts of the 



island were deforested generations ago. Both species usually oc- 

 cur together, mostly about the borders of dense thickets or sur- 

 rounded on all sides by an almost impenetrable growth of low trees 

 and shrubbery. In such situations they are often noticeable from 

 a distance rising above the surrounding growth, although rarely 



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Polpis, Pocomo, about Tom Never's Swamp, and on Coskaty, they 

 are of larger stature, reaching a height of fifteen or twenty feet, and 

 unite with the sour gum, sassafras, wild cherry, red maple, and 

 other trees to form patches of low woodland. The stoutest black 

 oak seen was in Tom Never's Swamp and measured thirty-six 

 inches around near the base. 



On Coskaty Is a considerable tract of low, thickety, almost im- 

 penetrable woodland largely composed of this oak, compact 

 heavily foliaged trees, which bear abundant fruit. Here the species 

 separates into two remarkably diverse forms, which flourish side 

 by side. One is the ordinary form of the tree having leaves with 

 broad lobes mostly wider than the often shallow sinuses. Its 

 comnanion form micrht easily be mistaken for the scarlet oak. The 



