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1911] Fernald,— A New Species of Scirpus 5 
As feared by Mr. Stone the specimens, when they reached Cam- 
bridge, were dried out so that a close study of the plant, which 
seemed like an extreme variant of Scirpus atrocinctus, was deferred 
until the receipt of well pressed and characteristic material in the 
autumn. A preliminary examination showed the Pine Barren plant 
to have several differences from S. atrocinctus, but with only a single 
collection at hand the writer was inclined to regard it as a pronounced 
southern variety of that boreal species. Upon further communica- 
tion with Mr. Stone it was learned that Mr. Bayard Long of the 
Philadelphia Academy had made a thorough study of the plant and 
would soon forward his results to Cambridge. 
In the mean time, in sorting the Cyperaceae contained in the her- 
barium of Mr. Charles E. Faxon, recently presented to the Gray 
Herbarium, the writer’s attention was arrested by one specimen so 
strongly suggesting the New Jersey material that it was examined 
in detail and found to have the same large stature, glutinous black 
bases to the involucral leaves, long pedicels, spikelets, scales and 
anthers, and the distinctive dark-reddish achenes of the Pine Barren 
plant. Mr. Faxon’s plant was collected in Boston in the early days 
of his botanizing and, though the label contained no more definite 
data, it was sufficient to stimulate a fruitful inquiry. Accordingly, 
when that indefatigable explorer of the Charles River system, Mr. 
Fayette F. Forbes, called next day at the Gray Herbarium, he was 
shown the new plant and in the evening telephoned: “The new Scirpus 
grows on the Charles River meadows at Dedham, on our Brookline 
water-works land. I think it is abundant there; at least I have always 
collected it there as S. atrocinctus.” The next evening, at the Decem- 
ber meeting of the New England Botanical Club, the writer, now 
further reinforced by flowering and fruiting sheets from Mr. Forbes 
which showed beautifully all the characteristics of the Stone and the 
Faxon specimens, exhibited the plant as a new species likely to be 
found elsewhere in southern New England. : 
In a few days came a very valuable detailed letter from Mr. Long 
emphasizing the specific claims of the plant and followed by a suite 
of specimens from the Williamstown Junction station and from 
Andrews, on the Great Egg Harbor River. These were perfectly 
characteristic and renewed the already well grounded conviction 
that we were dealing with a very distinct but undescribed Wool Grass. 
As indicated by the notes prepared by Mr. Long during the winter of 
1909-10, he had already worked out the specific characters of the 
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