174 Rhodora [OCTOBER 
by Old World material —a rather low, erect plant with smallish, 
stiff, notably dense panicles. It was confidently felt that specimens 
of E. peregrina would be found in the local herbarium of the 
Philadelphia Academy. A prompt examination of this collection 
appeared to verify almost overwhelmingly this sanguine expectation. 
It was seen that at least as early as the 60’s the plant had already 
appeared in Philadelphia. (The Mickleton and Lancaster specimens 
had been collected in the late 80’s.) — Specimens were found from 
the Martindale Herbarium labelled “ Byberry, Pa. 1864.” — presum- 
ably from the northern part of Philadelphia County. Two sheets 
by C. E. Smith, undated but probably of this same early period, had 
been collected in Philadelphia, one labelled “Streets of the city” 
and the other “ Mr. Longstreth’s place.” E. Diffenbaugh had obtained 
it in 1867 on waste-ballast soil below the Navy Yard. Of these older 
botanists, C. E. Smith and Isaac Martindale had referred the plant 
to Eragrostis pilosa without comment, but it was of interest to note 
that the discerning eye of Elias Diffenbaugh had recognized it as 
apparently differing from both E. pilosa and E. Purshii. A note of 
some length has been preserved with his specimens, in which he says: 
“This is the grass I called E. Purshii? in my list. After careful 
comparison with descriptions in Gray and in Chapman I am inclined 
to think it is not that plant. The pedicels are too short, and lateral 
nerves of lower palet not prominent enough. It cannot be L.. pilosa 
as described and figured by Gray: for that plant has the lower palet 
broadly ovate and obtuse. It is, most likely, a southerner, and am 
inclined to think not described in either of the above works. E. D. 
“Nov. 9, 1867” 
In the summer of 1898 A. F. K. Krout secured it three times within 
the city limits: on Wissahickon Creek; at Cramp’s [Ship Yard]; 
and at 13th. and Susquehanna Avenue, noting it between bricks on 
pavement. Between 1908 and 1910 it was obtained by other col- 
lectors from more outlying points about Philadelphia: to the south, 
from Delaware City, in the state of Delaware, by C. S. Williamson; 
to the west, at Wayne, in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, by E. B. 
Bartram; to the north, at Fort Washington, in Montgomery County, 
Pennsylvania, by myself. 
The Porter Herbarium produced two sheets from Lancaster, 
Pennsylvania: one from the Herbarium of Mrs. A. F. Eby collected 
in 1898; the other, by A. A. Heller in September, 1889, doubtless 
