138 Rhodora [AuausT 
SOME ALLIES OF RYNCHOSPORA MACROSTACHYA. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
Tae only Rynchosporas of the large-fruited series which are found 
from New Jersey to Massachusetts are referred to R. macrostachya 
Torr. and R. macrostachya, var. inundata (Oakes) Fernald, although 
Dr. Britton, who does not recognize the specific distinctness of R. 
macrostachya, refers both these plants to R. corniculata (Lam.) Gray. 
A recent examination of the New England material, however, has 
brought to light certain heretofore overlooked characters, which indi- 
cate conclusively that R. macrostachya is specifically distinct from R. 
corniculata, and, at the same time, that the little plant described by 
William Oakes from West Pond, Plymouth, Massachusetts, as Cerato- 
schoenus macrostachys, B. inundatus ' is specifically distinct from both. 
This latter discovery is particularly gratifying in view of Oakes’s 
observation when he originally described the plant, that “ This variety 
appears at first sight like a distinct species.” Oakes, it would seem, 
was deceived by the assumption that the occurrence of his variety 
from West Pond “in deeper water than the common one” was “the 
cause of its different appearance.” 
R. macrostachya is a non-stoloniferous plant, the new autumnal 
shoots being erect and arising from within the old sheaths and growing 
close to the old culms. The plant described by Oakes as var. inundata 
is a comparatively rare plant, found, so far as known, at a single pond 
in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, in one or perhaps two ponds on 
Long Island, and at only a few stations in New Jersey, and all the 
material shows it to be loosely stoloniferous, the new horizontal leaf- 
less offshoots being a decimeter or more in length. The plant is 
very much smaller in all its parts than R. macrostachya, growing much 
lower, only 2-6 dm. high, and having much more slender leaves and 
shorter spikelets. The striking difference in the habit of the plant has 
already been emphasized by Oakes and again by the present writer,’ 
R. macrostachya having the branches of the large inflorescences strongly 
fastigiate, the primary glomerules with 10-50 spikelets. Var. inundata, 
on the other hand, has the inflorescence diffuse, the primary glomerules 
with few spikelets (1-6). But the most pronounced differences are 
found in the mature fruits. In R. macrostachya the mature achene is 
1 Oakes in Hovey’s Mag. vii. 185 (1841). 2 Fernald, Ruopona, xviii. 164 (196). 
