1900] Fernald, — Scirpus maritimus in America 239 
THE REPRESENTATIVES OF SCIRPUS MARITIMUS IN 
AMERICA. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
THE bulrush, so abundant in all New England saltmarshes, and 
characterized by its densely clustered thick brown spikelets and its 
long moniliform rootstocks with subspherical tubers, has been gen- 
erally known as Scirpus maritimus, L. The species, as it grows upon 
our eastern coast, presents two marked forms. One, the abundant 
plant of the New England marshes, has ovate, ovate-oblong or oblong 
spikelets densely clustered in a head subtended by two or three in- 
volucral leaves. The other, sometimes growing with the dense- 
headed form and often intergrading with it, is characterized by the 
somewhat branched inflorescence, elongated rays springing from near 
the base of the dense central head of spikelets. This form with the 
branching inflorescence is much less common in New England than 
is the plant with congested inflorescence, but further south it is com- 
mon, and it occurs also inland and upon the Pacific coast, as does 
likewise the plant with dense heads. "The two forms of the plant are 
thus of very broad range in America, but, aside from their habital dif- 
ferences, no characters are found by which they can be separated. 
In their extremes they are strikingly different, but, with very numerous 
transitional forms and no perceptible differences in the spikelets and 
achenes, the two plants can be considered only varieties of one broadly 
distributed species. 
In 1803 Michaux described this American plant, or at least the 
more branching form, as Scirpus maritimus, var. macrostachyus 
(“ spicis sessilibus Pedunculatisque "), distinguishing it from the Euro- 
pean S. maritimus by its thicker spikelets (** Spicule quam in europaea 
multo crassiores "). In 1814 Pursh described as a species, S. robus- 
tus, the large plant (* spicis oblongis, corymbo composito") with the 
note, “certainly specifically distinct from S. maritimus, with which I 
carefully compared it," and in this species he included the var. mac- 
rostachyus of Michaux. 
Subsequent authors, however, treated the American plant as iden- 
tical with the European .S. maritimus, and under that name it was 
known in America until 1892, when Dr. Britton pointed out that the 
plant of the eastern saltmarshes differed from S. maritimus not only 
in its thicker spikes but in its achenes, those of the European species 
