110 Rhodora [JUNE 
PANICUM $ CAPILLARIA IN NEW ENGLAND. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
Ever since the publication of Hitchcock & Chase’s North American 
Species of Panicum! the writer has attempted in vain to reconcile 
the New England plants of the section Capillaria with the published 
treatment. Finally, finding that by Hitchcock & Chase’s treatment 
all the eastern P. barbipulvinatum Nash had been thrust into P. 
capillare L., that much of the northwestern P. capillare had been 
forced into P. barbipulvinatum, and that the common indigenous 
species of river- and lake-shores of most of New England had been 
merged with the strikingly dissimilar P. philadelphicum Bernh., it 
seemed desirable to study these plants from a new standpoint. 
In this study it has been found that the common New England 
plant which has been confused with P. philadelphicum is distinguished 
at once from P. capillare (including P. barbipulvinatum) and P. 
philadelphicum by having strictly glabrous pulvini (at the bases of the 
panicle-branches), in this character agreeing with the southern P. 
Gattingeri Nash; while P. capillare and P. philadelphicum have the 
pulvini obviously hispid. 
The characters relied upon by Hitchcock & Chase to separate P. 
barbipulvinatum from P. capillare are 
“Spikelets 2 to 2.2, rarely 2.5 mm. long; blades not crowded toward the base. 
: 23. P. capillare. 
Spikelets 3 to 3.3, rarely only 2.5 mm. long; blades usually crowded 
toward: te Dabo.: oins eol ESI 24. P. barbipulvinatum." 
It will be noticed that the spikelet-length is not constant, and this 
becomes conspicuously the case when the series of specimens in the 
Gray Herbarium and the herbarium of the New England Botanical 
Club, examined by Hitchcock & Chase, is studied anew, for of the 9 
sheets labeled by them * P. capillare," 5 are exact matches for western 
sheets which they marked * P. barbipulvinatum." Conversely, many 
of the western specimens marked by them “ P. barbipulvinatum" are 
inseparable from eastern plants called " P. capillare.” Nor does the 
crowding of foliage at the base hold any better. 
1 Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb. xv. (1910) . 
