board, and rarely occurs inland anywhere, but still, after making a special 

 study of the cat-tails, I am bound to say that this species attains a greater 

 perfection in Nantucket than in any locality with which I am acquainted. 



" I also found in several of the island ponds Myriophyllum ambiguum, 

 Nutt, producing in the same spot all the forms of that species which are 

 described in Gray's Manual. In that little pond of unsavory local appel- 

 lation, "Rotten Pumpkin," these plants had filled almost every inch of 

 the water, and were climbing upon themselves in their eagerness to grow. 

 Wherever they had protruded their tops above the surface, the pectinate 

 emersed leaves appeared. This form of water-milfoil is seldom found on 

 the mainland in such profusion or perfection. 



"Another thing of interest in respect to the aquatic vegetation of Nan- 

 tucket is the fact that it contains a few species of plants entirely peculiar, 

 and apparently the remains of an ancient flora. They belong to the order 

 Characece, which is remarkable for retaining special forms in the same lo- 

 calities unchanged for generations and probably for centuries. Nitella Mor- 

 ongii, Allen, n.sp., is, so far as we know, confined to one small pool in 

 Nantucket. Chara crinita, Wallr. var. leptosperma, A. Br., and Nitella 

 batrachosperma, A. Br., are not known to occur anywhere else in North 

 America. This, though on a small scale, is a significant fact. It would 

 seem to have an important bearing upon the geological history of the re- 

 gion, and to imply that these peculiar forms have been preserved by a re- 

 mote isolation of the island. Being subaqueous plants, the spores of which 

 are rather solid and sink readily into the mud, they could not be easily 

 transported across the sound, and so have remained in situ for ages, un- 

 disturbed, while all the other plants have been gradually diverging from 

 the ancient types. 



" I might also speak of the numerous pot-holes and little pools, many 

 of which become dry in the summer, in and around which occur many 

 peculiar plants that belong to a more southern flora than that of the 

 adjacent mainland, but enough has been said to show that the vegetation 

 of Nantucket presents various interesting questions worthy of the atten- 

 tion of the trained botanist." 



And it is not only living botanists who have assisted in the work. Wil- 

 liam Oakes visited Nantucket in 1829 ; in 1841 and again in 1847, he re- 

 ported the rarer plants he found there in Hovey's Magazine of Horticul- 

 ture and Botany. The late Dr. Robbins of Uxbridge was also there in 

 1829, and President Hitchcock of Amherst in 1833. Mr. Thos. A. Greene 

 of New Bedford collected on the island before 1829, and is known to have 

 formed an herbarium, whether in existence now this writer cannot say. 



