BICKNELL: FERNS AND FLOWERING PLANTS OF. NANTUCKET 419 
East Massachusetts to southern New Jersey, Georgia, and 
Alabama. Type from Nantucket, Sept. 11, 1899, in Herb. N. Y. 
Botanical Garden. Flowers on Nantucket from July (July 8, 
1912) until well into September. 
This is the small, yellow-flowered Linum that is a characteristic 
plant of Nantucket, where it is scattered widely over the moorland 
and commons and is sometimes found about cranberry bogs in 
lower grounds. It was first collected by me in 1899 on the supposi- 
tion that it was the then little known Linum medium (Planch.) 
Britton. Subsequently it proved to be not uncommon on Marthas 
Vineyard and on Long Island, where it is one of the noteworthy 
plants of the Hempstead Plains. Early Nantucket specimens sub- 
mitted to Dr. J. K. Small were referred to Linum floridanum 
(Planch.) Trelease, which had not then been found north of South 
Carolina, and in the North American Flora the range of that species 
was extended north to Massachusetts. This disposition of the plant 
was also adopted in the seventh edition of Gray’s Manual. I have 
seen much of this Linwm since it was first collected and have 
learned in the field how distinct it is from Linum medium, and now 
a review of herbarium material leads me here to propose it as 
distinct from Linum floridanum also. If we examine a well-fruited 
Specimen of the latter, say Curtiss’ “North American Plants,” 
NO. 412, or his ‘‘Second Distribution,” no. 6850, we find that the 
Conspicuous yellow bony capsules are ovoid-subglobose to ovoid- 
oblong, 2.5-3.5 mm. high and rounded or even subtruncate at the 
top. In size and form as well as in color they are thus in marked 
Contrast to the greenish purple conic and acute thinner-walled 
‘apsule of the more northern plant. They are also much more 
tardily dehiscent, the carpels not cuspidate and with non-ciliate 
*€pta; also, the false septum is more complete and the seeds, of a 
More reddish color, are one third larger. Linum floridanum is a 
taller and paler green plant than Linum intercursum, its leaves 
thicker and more rigid, narrower and more attenuate, and sharply 
cuspidate with pale hardened points; the flowers appear to be 
larger and the rootlets are fewer and less delicately fibrous. The 
leaves and the capsules of Linum floridanum conform closely to 
those of Linum medium. Linum intercursum in its angled branches 
and acute Capsule with cilia-bearing septa, shows an approach to 
