17S Rhodora [Axtoubt 



l)\ Merrill ' in keeping the species apart, but in many other characters, 



which, in view <>l the recent tendency to reunite the eastern American 

 plants with tin 1 European S. striata, it is well to enumerate. 



European $. stricta has the very short involute leaf-blades distinctly 

 articulated to the firm sheat hs, hut " they are so readily detached from 

 the sheaths, that by the time the plant is in flower most of the lower 

 sheaths have lost their laminae." ~ This character is very conspicuous 

 in herbarium-specimens of true S. striata of Europe, in which half 

 the blades have sometimes disarticulated; but in the American plant 

 the long leaf-blade and soft sheath are continuous. The ligule of the 

 European S. stricta is laciniate, 1 of the American a ring of hairs. And 

 the European S. stricta is said by Syme to have Ihe "Stem. . . .easily 

 broken," terms which would not be used to describe the American 

 plant by anyone' who has vainly attempted to pull specimens from 

 the marsh. In our plant the rhaehis is ordinarily prolonged beyond 

 the spikelets; in S. stricta the rhaehis, though a little prolonged, rarely 

 exceeds the spikelets. In short, S. stricta of Europe is quite unlike its 



American representative in many definite characters. 



The plant of the northern Atlantic coast, from Newfoundland and 

 the lower St. Lawrence to New Jersey, S. alternifljora Loisel., is, how- 

 ever, apparently inseparable from the authentic European material 

 of S. alterniflora. This was recognized by Gray as early as 1856 and 

 I he identity has been admitted by many subsequent American and 

 European students. It is unfortunate', therefore, since S. alterniflora 

 Loisel. was published in 1807 and S. glabra Muhl. not until 1X17, that 

 the later name, S. glabra, should have been recently maintained for 

 the species, and with a var. alterniflora based upon the earlier-pub- 

 lished S. alterniflora. The latter name, obviously, has precedence as 

 a specific name and the plants of the North Atlantic coast should be 

 called: 



Si" \ Hi IN A ALTERNIFLORA Loisel. Fl. (bill. ii. 710 (1807). S. stricta, 



var. alterniflora Gray, Man. ed. 2, 562 (1856). S. glabra alterniflora 

 Merrill, U. S. Dept. Agric. Bur. PI. End. Hull. no. <),'<) (1902); Hitch- 

 cock in Gray, Man. ed. 7, 143 (1908). 



S. alterniflora, var. glabra (Muhl.), n. comb. Dactylis maritima 

 Walt, Fl. Carol. 77 (1788), not Curtis (17S7). S. glabra Muhl. dram. 

 54 (1817); Merrill, I. c. 8 (1902); Hitchcock, I. e. (1908). S. stricta, 



I Merrill. I. .'. !). 



-'Symo, Engl. Bot. xi. 5 (IS7.i). 



1 Huuy, l'|. Fr. xiv. 20 (1913). 



