60 Rhodora [Marcu 
THE RE-DISCOVERY OF ELEOCHARIS DIANDRA. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
NEARLY twenty years ago Charles Wright collected on high sand- 
bars of the Connecticut river, between Hartford and Wethersfield, a 
little spike-rush, which was unlike any other known species. Its most 
marked characteristic was the lack of bristles which, in this genus, 
usually occur at the base of the achene, probably representing the 
perianth of higher endogens. ‘The plant was further distinguished 
by its very small inverted-pyriform achene, capped by a small com- 
pressed tubercle. After corresponding with Dr. Gray in regard to his 
plant, Mr. Wright in 1883 described it as Eleocharis diandra. Since 
then nothing has been known of the species except from the original 
specimens. Recently, however, Mr. C. H. Bissell, taking advantage of 
the extremely low water of the Connecticut in the fall of 1899, has ex- 
plored the sand-flats along the river at East Windsor, Connecticut. 
There he finds the plant described by Wright, but most of the material 
differs markedly in habit from Wright’s specimens. The original 
Eleocharis diandra was an erect plant with many slender culms. 
Though Mr. Bissell finds this erect plant, the common form at East 
Windsor has the culms decidedly prostrate and of very unequal lengths, 
a variation from the type parallel with Æ. ovata, var. Heuseri (see 
Contrib. Gray Herb. xv, Proc. Am. Acad. xxxiv, 486—489, 494). As- 
sured by Mr. Bissell's re-discovery of this unique E/eocAa?s, President 
Ezra Brainerd felt that it should be expected along the entire Con- 
necticut Valley. Accordingly as occasion has offered, he has looked 
in the proper situations for it at points in New Hampshire, Vermont 
and Massachusetts and finds at them all the same prostrate form which 
abounds on the sand at East Windsor. 
This form, differing so strikingly in habit from the original erect 
plant of Charles Wright, may be called — 
ELEOCHARIS DIANDRA, C. Wright, var. depressa. Culms of very 
various lengths, depressed and prostrate, forming flat rosettes. Sand- 
bars and flats of the Connecticut river, New Hampsuire, Walpole, Sept. 
30, 1899 (Ezra Brainerd): VERMONT, Westminster, Sept. 30, 1899 
(Ezra Brainerd) : MassacHUsETIS, Northampton, Oct. 11, 1899 (Ezra 
Brainerd) : CONNECTICUT, East Windsor, Sept. 17, 1899 (C. Æ. 
Bissell). A discussion and figures of Mr. Wright’s species will be found 
in the paper by the present writer cited above (Contrib. Gray Herb. 
xv, 489, 496, figs. 53-58). 
Gray HERBARIUM. 
