180 Rhodora [SEPTEMBER 
“Wheat, barley and oats are self-fertile and do not mix in the field 
through cross-pollination.” 
In grass-species that are the same as those of Europe, I look with 
interest to see if the hours of anthesis given for Europe are the same 
in America; Kunth names 11 4. M. for Agrostis, and on Copley Square 
at that hour, I gathered a panicle of Agrostis alba with open flowers, 
and taking it to a Botany Class, we had the satisfaction of seeing the 
tiny, but turgescent lodicules. The much-observed Dactylis glomerata 
is said by one man to open at 6 and 7, by another man, 6 and 9; 
here, I have found them at 6 and 7 A. M. 
By the end of the summer, I had examined only nine or ten of the 
turgescent lodicules of grass-species belonging to the Sub-family 
Poacoideae, and four or five belonging to that of the Panicoideae, an 
insufficient basis for a theory, yet I noticed that the lodicules of the 
former had thin, scale-like tops to their turgescent bases, while of the 
latter the lodicules of Setaria verticillata, Digitaria humifusa and D. 
sanguinalis were like pebbles, round or oblong, while those of Echino- 
chloa crus-galli were broad, and square at the top; fortunately remem- 
bering that Dr. Percival Lowell tells us that “nothing is so rash as a 
general denial, except a particular statement," I looked in Kunth's 
drawings of lodicules in Enumeratio plantarum, and there found two 
or three of the Poacoideae that had truncate tops, not tapering up into 
a lanceolate tip — these were the “squamulae in unam connatae" 
of Glyceria aquatica and Glyceria fluitans, and the squamulae with 
ciliate tops of Andropogon halepensis. 
I found the flowers of Setaria verticillata and S. glauca open in July 
at about 6 a. M.; those of Digitaria humifusa I found open from 4 
to 5 4. M., but think they were all closed by 7 — that, however, was 
on an intensely hot day (July 4, 1911). From 7 to 8 a. m. the little 
mouths of Digitaria sanguinalis open up and down the freshly emerged 
"fingers" that have scarcely begun to separate from each other. 
A quotation from Knuth informs us that the “stigmas protrude simul- 
taneously with the anthers, so that at first only self-pollination is 
possible." I noticed that the neutral flower has as well-developed 
turgescent lodicules as the perfect flower. 
Flowers of Echinochloa crus-galli I found open, in the house, from 
8 to 9 4. M., with lodicules so different from those of any other grass- 
species that I have examined, that I shall seek for the earliest blooming 
panicle this year, to verify my drawings. 
