1909]  Klugh,— Excretion of Sodium Chloride by Spartina 237 
as R. saxatilis, var. canadensis. R. pubescens Raf., being the earliest 
specific name for the plant in question, should, according to the above 
cited article of the Vienna Rules, stand as the valid designation of the 
species. 
WESTMINSTER, VERMONT. 
:XCRETION OF SODIUM CHLORIDE BY SPARTINA 
GLABRA ALTERNIFLORA. 
А. B. KrvcnH. 
WHILE at the Atlantic Coast Marine Biological Station at St. 
Andrews, New Brunswick, this summer (1909), I noticed that the 
leaves of Spartina glabra alterniflora (Loisel.) Merr., growing in a brack- 
ish marsh, had an abundance of crystals upon them. Upon scraping 
off some of these crystals and tasting them I found that they had the 
characteristic taste of Sodium chloride, and examination with a lens 
showed that they were cubes. 
Although it struck me that the salt had been excreted by the leaves, 
I thought that (as it was at the time low tide, and the tide there rises 
from twenty-three to twenty-eight feet) possibly the plants were sub- 
merged at high-tide, and that the salt was deposited upon the leaves 
while they were submerged. So I returned to the marsh at high tide 
and found that the state ofethe tide made practically no difference in 
the level of the water in the marsh. І examined all the other species 
in the marsh carefully but failed to find any crystals upon them. 
I then took some of the leaves to the Laboratory, cleaned them 
thoroughly, and placed the cut end of one in fresh-water and of the 
other in sea water over night. In the morning both had a large num- 
ber of crystals upon them, there being however more upon the one 
placed in sea water than upon the other. ‘That they formed at all 
upon the leaf placed in fresh water showed that there must have been 
a remarkable concentration of salt in the tissues of the leaf. I no- 
ticed that the great majority of the crystals were in the grooves of 
the leaves, there being however some upon the carinae. 
I removed the leaf from the sea-water, cleaned it carefully, watched 
