BICKNELL: FERNS AND FLOWERING PLANTS OF NANTUCKET 607 
in the clusters, and greenish or greenish purple even when fully 
ripe. This pale-fruited form is locally abundant on Marthas 
Vineyard, where it is often wholly green at maturity and is known 
to the islanders as the white wild grape. I did not myself see it 
growing there, but, on Sept. 28, 1911, was shown several large 
sacks filled with the perfectly ripe green fruit which, in gathering, 
had been kept separate from the usual purple kind. 
VITIS AESTIVALIS Michx. 
Found only on the eastern side of the island, where it is frequent 
or locally common in wet or dry thickets sometimes actually 
intertwined with Vitis Labrusca. It occursin Shawkemo, Pocomo, 
Coskaty, and Squam, and south to Tom Never’s Pond. Comes 
into flower rather later than V. Labrusca. Flower buds very 
small June 7, 1911, and June 13, 1908; first flowers June 26, 1910; 
still in bloom July 11, 1912. It appears to fruit only sparingly 
on Nantucket, although bearing abundantly on Marthas Vineyard. 
Fruit small and green Aug. 13, 1906; becoming purplish Sept. 
II, 1907. On Marthas Vineyard much of the fruit was still 
unripe Oct. 5, 1912. 
A very old vine near Abram’s Point measured twenty-one 
inches around close to the base and seventeen inches a foot above. 
PARTHENOCISSUS QUINQUEFOLIA (L.) Planch. 
In thickets, either in low grounds or on the dry plains, some- 
times trailing over banks clothed with crisp lichens and bearberry 
or even thriving in exposed white sand. Flower buds _ barely 
visible June 1, 1909, and June 14, I9II; no open flowers up to 
July 12, 1912. 
The leaflets vary from glabrous to thickly pubescent with 
silvery hairs on the lower surface and to some extent on the 
upper surface also; this pubescence may extend thinly along the 
petioles but seems always to be absent from the branchlets and 
- tendrils. It is a character that has been adduced as distinctive 
of Parthenocissus hirsutus (Donn) Small, but as to the pubescent - 
Nantucket plant there seems little reason to doubt that it is 
merely a condition of the common Virginia creeper. The leaves 
of young plants are often very pubescent, and in older plants the 
lower leaves may be pubescent and the later ones quite glabrous. 
