BICKNELL: FERNS AND FLOWERING PLANTS OF NANTUCKET 423 
Swamp, just as it there grew long ago as reported to Mrs. Owen 
by Mr. Dame. Extensive growths of this plant are undoubtedly 
destroyed from time to time by fires which pass over the moors. 
I have noticed wide areas so devastated where the railroad traverses 
its general habitat, the fires having been started by sparks from 
passing trains. 
Green fruit June 13, 1908; fruit mature and readily falling 
June 24, 1910; scarcely mature July 2, 1912. 
ANACARDIACEAE 
RHUS COPALLINA L. 
Common, mainly on the eastern side of the island. Leaves 
only beginning to unfold June 7, 1911; in full flower Sept. 15, 1907. 
*Ruus urrta (L.) Sudworth. 
It may be open to doubt whether the staghorn sumac is 
native to Nantucket. A scattered growth has long occupied a 
field along an old cemetery south of the town, and a few rather 
ill-favored shrubs grow along a field border by the Surfside road 
in the suburbs, where they were first seen in 1899. But there is 
no certainty that these are of native origin, since the species has 
n used as an ornamental shrub in several yards in the town 
and also about a distant farmhouse in Squam. Better evidence 
that it belongs to the island’s natural flora is afforded by a strong 
colony of full tree stature along a steep bank between Union and 
Orange streets, Although now pent in in the midtown and forming 
Part of the back yards of buildings that abut on either street, this 
bank must have once formed a prominent bluff corresponding to 
the “Cliff” on the north side of the town. The evident age of 
these sumacs and their position on the side of the bluff allow 
Strong presumption that they are a relic of its native vegetation. 
The larger trees are certainly not less than twenty-two feet in 
height, and one measured in 1909 was twenty-eight inches in 
“rcumference one foot above the base. This sumac occurs on 
arthas Vineyard on a bank at Tashmoo Pond, where it is clearly 
tive, 
Raus GLapra |. 
Frequent in dry ground about the borders of thickets in the 
northeastern section of the island from Shawkemo to Pocomo, 
