118 Rhodora [APRIL 
their second year, and finally dark gray-brown, and armed with 
numerous stout often curved red-brown shining spines 3-4 cm. in 
length. Flowers at the end of May. Fruit ripens from the rst to 
the middle of October. s 
PROVINCE OF QuEBEC: Dry limestone ridges near the south bank 
of the St. Lawrence River in the Caughnawaga Indian Reservation, 
and on Montreal Island at Highlands and Rockfield, 7. Œ. Jack, Sep- 
tember and October 1899, May and September 1go1 and 1902. 
AN INTERESTING FORM OF LEERSIA ORYZOIDES. — During the lat- 
ter part of September, 1902, while collecting along the tidal shores of 
the Merrimac river near “the laurels” in the western part of New- 
buryport, Mass., in company with Mr. Oakes Ames and Mr. R. G. 
Leavitt, I chanced to examine an apparently sterile grass that grew 
on the tide-swept shores, and found it to be a cleistogamous, smooth 
Leersia. It grew to about fifteen inches in height, and its leaves 
were horizontally spreading, soft and flaccid. Several specimens 
were taken home, and a study showed them to be very similar to Z. 
oryzoides Swartz. Several trips made in the vicinity of Seabrook, New 
Hampshire, to observe this species growing in the field resulted in the 
interesting discovery that while Z. oryzoides is often cleistogamous 
when growing in air, it is always rough under such circumstances ; 
but when growing submersed it is a/ways cleistogamous and smooth. 
On another trip to the Newburyport locality in company with Mr. 
M. L. Fernald, a diligent search revealed a patch extending up the 
shore from well within the influence of the tide to nearly out of its 
reach. ‘The lower part of this patch was identical in all respects with 
the plants of my first collection, while the upper part was the typical 
rough form with exserted panicles, thus beautifully demonstrating 
the oddity to be a physiological form, produced by submersion. It 
may be described as follows: 
L. oryzorpEs forma glabra. Submersed or inundated regularly 
by tides; a few inches to 14 ft. tall, smooth; leaves horizontal, soft 
and flaccid, each bearing a cleistogamous panicle in its sheath, the ter- 
minal with sheaths swollen by the enclosed flowers, but never rup- 
turing. Spikes as in the type, but with fewer setae. — ALvAH A. 
Eaton, The Ames Botanical Laboratory, North Easton, Massachu- 
setts. 
