NANTUCKET IN APRIL 77 



downs the rich, ozonic odor of the deep sea for 

 a fundamental delight. And always with it are 

 the perfumes of the blossoming land. There is 

 tradition of heavy oak timbers once growing on 

 Nantucket, but only the tradition remains. Here 

 now are low forests of stunted pitch pines, send- 

 ing their rich resinous aroma on all winds. And 

 in late April with these comes the spicy smell of 

 the trailing arbutus, which hides all along the 

 ground among poverty weed, gray cladium moss, 

 and Indian wood grass, sometimes starring the 

 mossy mats of mealy-plum with the pinky-white 

 of its blooms. The mealy-plum itself shows faint 

 coral edging of pink young buds, and here and 

 there a thistle plant, stemless as yet, looks like a 

 green and bristly starfish in the grass. Isolated 

 red cedars on this wind-swept down grow round 

 balls of dense green foliage four or five feet in 

 diameter, looking as if it needed but a blow of 

 an axe at the butt to send them rolling down wind 

 like big tumble weeds. Scrub oaks curiously 

 take the same form, and clumps of bayberry, 

 black huckleberries and sweet fern are often 

 rounded off to hemispheres. 



Four silver-toned strokes from the old Lisbon 



