BICKNELL: FERNS AND FLOWERING PLANTS OF NANTUCKET 425 
cumbent stems. All of these forms have essentially entire leaflets, 
but a low-climbing form found on Coskaty has thin leaflets mostly 
cuneate at the base and coarsely dentate. Most distinct of all is a 
plant of compact and clustered small foliage and prostrate and 
rooting stems, which thrives in the driest and most exposed 
reaches of pure white sand. By comparison in the field with 
freer-growing larger-leaved forms this showed marked differences 
in the inflorescence, which was sparser and much more contracted, 
even congested, with considerably smaller flowers, the anthers 
especially being less than half the size, by actual measurement 
9.50.75 mm. as against 1.5-1.75 mm. The small fruit is densely 
pubescent. 
ILICACEAE 
ILEX opaca Ait. 
Twenty-four years ago Mrs. Owen wrote that the holly was 
becoming rare on Nantucket, having been cut for firewood, but 
that it still grew in swamps at the eastern end of the island. It is 
indeed regrettably rare at the present day, and I have met with 
it only in secluded spots in Beechwood, and a single tree farther 
west, in Polpis. At the main Beechwood locality there was still 
i 1910 a scattered growth of strong trees, the largest 10-15 feet 
in height, with trunks of 10-12 inches in circumference. The 
Polpis tree, in 1900, was about 10 feet high, the trunk 14 inches 
around, one foot above the base. 
In J uly 1912 it was found that most of the fine trees in Beech- 
Wood had been severely mutilated, presumably for Christmas 
decorations, the entire tops of most of them having been cut away. 
ILEX GLABRA (L.) A. Gray. 
A characteristic shrub of the eastern and the western sides of 
the island, ornamenting low thickets or fringing the borders of 
ee With its masses of dark lustrous green. It is one of the few 
‘Pecies of Nantucket which is common on both sides of the island 
but “5 almost wanting in the intervening territory, in which I have 
wen tat only a few stations: Pout Ponds, Tawpaushas Swamp, 
“mmo Ponds, a single cluster, and a small patch among pines 
on the Surfside road—an unusual situation. It is common at 
“ng Pond, at the western end of the island, and especially so 
