76 Rhodora [APRIL 
the pond lies in a belt of more or less similar country which apparently 
extends along the western border of Rhode Island all the way from 
Westerly to a point near Webster, Massachusetts. Any part of it is 
likely to repay exploration. 
East HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT. 
BROMELICA (THURBER): A NEW GENUS OF GRASSES. 
OLIVER ATKINS FARWELL. 
For some years past our eastern species of Oat Grass have been 
bandied about between Avena and Melica, affording for some a merry 
game of shuttlecock. These species appear to have no permanent 
home and to be a restless group, that, like Banquo’s Ghost, will not 
down. It seems best, therefore, to create a new genus for them. At 
least one of that small group of grasses, to which belong our eastern 
Oat Grasses, has been included at one time or another in five different 
genera, Festuca, Bromus, Melica, Avena and Trisetum. As regards 
our eastern species Michaux first described Avena striata in 1803; 
Torrey next described it as Trisetum purpurascens; A. Gray replaced 
it in Avena using Michaux’s name; Hitchcock then removed it to 
Melica as M. striata; finally Nash restored it to Avena as A. Torreyi. 
The second species was described by Porter in 1867 as Avena Smithii 
and it was removed to Melica by Vasey in 1888. At the present time 
Hitchcock, in Gray's Manual, lists these species under Melica; Britton 
& Brown in the Illustrated Flora list them under Avena; Rydberg in 
the Flora of the Rocky Mountains steers an intermediate course listing 
the first under Avena and the second under Melica. When authors 
are at such wide variance with each other in their treatment of such 
closely related species, the probabilities are that the species do not 
belong to any one of the genera to which they have been referred. 
A careful analysis of the distinguishing characters of each genus bears 
out this supposition. 
These species can scarcely belong to Avena since they lack the most 
important tribal characters distinctive of the Aveneae, viz.: the spine- 
like end of the rachilla prolonged behind the uppermost floret and 
glumes longer than the lower floret. "They do agree with the Festuceae 
