1912] Clarke,— Suggestion for Summer Observations 179 
the still closed glumes, while the undehisced anthers already project 
slightly from their tips.” I did not find the flowers to open readily 
in the house, though my drawing of the lodicules was made from a 
spike in a vase [at 6.30 A. M.]. 
But flowers of Festuca elatior do open readily in the house — I noted 
them at 6, 7 and 8 a.M.and at noon, and those of Agropyron repens 
at 10.30 and 3.30; and out of doors I found them open at 5.30 P. M., 
back of Magnolia Beach, on a cool, gray day. 
The anthesis and pollination of Arrhenatherum elatius is fully 
pictured and described in Kunth, but I was glad to find two panicles, 
and to see for myself the large lodicules, with unusually long tops. 
Elymus virginicus is common at Magnolia, along Raymond St., 
but through some piece of carelessness, having forgotten the results of 
previous determinations, I last summer brought it out to E. canadensis. 
Finding flowers open, in a vase in the house at 4 P. M., I drew the 
lodicules with the scale-like tops fringed. Later, I looked up the 
Latin description of various lodicules in Kunth's Enumeratio Plan- 
tarum, and noticed that he called those of Elymus canadensis “ non- 
ciliatae," and those of E. virginicus, "ciliatae"; I then compared 
my Raymond St. plants with previously named mounts in my her- 
barium, and found them to be really E. virginicus. 
Oats — Avena sativa, grew abundantly by stables and roadsides at 
Magnolia, and as I passed them, at all hours of the day, I gathered 
the pretty panicles and looked for open flowers, also standing them in 
vases about the house, but I never caught a blossom open till the 
morning of September 12, at 6 a. M., when my eye was caught by 
one open blossom in a glass in the house, with turgescent lodicules, and 
a half-split anther caught onto one stigma. But if American-grown 
Oats behave like European, there seems no reason why I should not 
have found flowers open very often. Out of a number of observers 
quoted by Kunth, Godron states that the flowers open between 
2 and 4 P. w.; Hildebrand that in dry weather, they open in the 
afternoon or towards evening, but in unfavorable weather, they 
remain closed, and pseudo-cleistogamous autogamy takes place; 
Kirchener says that anthesis begins in the afternoon when the weather 
is favorable and lasts till evening; Koórnicke says, many varieties, 
besides opening in the P. M. do so also in the A. M. beginning in favor- 
able weather, before 8 a. M. and continuing some hours, but the bulk 
of the flowers always open after mid-day. De Vries tells us that 
