266 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
DISTRIBUTION. 
Wet places, mostly sphagnum bogs or swamps, New Jersey to Georgia; also in 
Mississippi. 
New Jersey: Forked River, Britton in 1896; Penn Place, Clute in 1899; Toms 
River, Bicknell in 1900; At- 
sion, Chase 3535, 3557. 
MaryYLANpD: Beltsville, Chase 
3739. 
NortH Carouina: Roanoke Is- 
land, Chase 3227, 3234; West 
Raleigh, Stanton, 1272; Wil- 
sons Mills, Chase 30964, 3097; 
Onslow County, Ashe in 1899, 
Chase 3176, 3177, 3196; Wil- 
mington, fitchcock 1425, 
14363, 1439. , Fia. 292.—Distribution of P. ensifolium. 
Sourn Carozina: St. Helena Is- 
land, Cuthbert in 1887; Orangeburg, Hitchcock 1370, 1379, 1405. 
GEORGIA: Bulloch County, Harper 829; Augusta, Cuthbert 1160; without locality, 
Baldwin. 
Mississippi: Biloxi, Hitchcock 1067. 
158. Panicum vernale sp. nov. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Vernal plants light green, soft in texture; culms densely cespitose, 15 to 30 cm., rarely 
to 40 cm. high, very slender, ascending or spreading, glabrous, the nodes glabrous; 
leaves clustered at the base, the thin, rather soft blades 2 to 7 cm. long, 3 to 5 mm. 
wide, those of the culm remote, the glabrous sheaths one-fourth to one-third as long 
as the elongated internodes; ligules almost obsolete; blades 0.7 to 2.5 cm. long, 2 to 3 
mm. wide, glabrous or puberulent on the lower surface, occasionally also on the upper 
surface, at first erect, becoming spreading or reflexed; panicles finally long-exserted, 
1.5 to3 cm. long, nearly as wide, rather few-flowered, the flexuous 
branches spreading; spikelets 1.4 to 1.5 mm. long, 0.8 mm. wide, 
obovate-elliptic, subacute, pubescent; first glume about one- 
fourth as long as the spikelet, subacute; second glume and 
sterile lemma scarcely as long as the fruit at maturity; fruit 1.2 
. mm. long, 0.7 to 0.8 mm. wide. 
Fig. 293.—P. vernale. : . . 
From type speci- Autumnal form like the vernal form in appearance, branching 
men. from the base, these culms simple and soon dying to the ground, 
rarely late in the season producing a few short fascicled branchlets 
at the nodes, the scarcely reduced flat blades spreading; winter leaves numerous, soft, 
persistent during the vernal stage, linear, rather abruptly narrowed at the apex, not 
long-acuminate. 
Type U.S. National Herbarium no. 558416, collected in a ‘sphagnum bog, Lake 
City, Florida, April 16, 1906,’’ by A. S. Hitchcock (no. 1020). 
This species has been confused with P. ensifolium Baldw.,¢ from which it is dis- 
tinguished by the more densely cespitose habit and light green, soft foliage, the very 
numerous basal blades as much as 7 cm. long, flat, linear, not long-acuminate. 
« Panicum nitidum ensifolium as described in Chapman’s Flora (Fl. South, U. 8. 
ed. 3. 586. 1897) is P. vernale. 
