12 Rhodora [JANUARY 
The range of the variety in the New England states is very limited, 
the only material seen coming from Dennis on Cape Cod and from 
Westerly, Rhode Island, while the typical P. virgatum appears to be 
limited in New England to the Connecticut Valley from Vermont and 
southwestern New Hampshire to Connecticut. South and west of 
this region, typical P. virgatum is more general in its distribution. 
Growing on the rocks, shore of Flatt’s Inlet, Bermuda, is a stout, 
succulent. plant which differs conspicuously from P. virgatum. The 
leaves are broad, smooth, stiff, and coriaceous, the sheaths slightly 
shorter than the internodes. The panicle is narrowly ellipsoid and 
dense, the spikelets on short (1-2 mm.) ‘pedicels. The spikelets are 
easily separated from those of true P. virgatum by having the lower 
glume two-thirds the length of the spikelets and the midvein serrate 
Fig. 1. Base of typical P. virgatum. 
towards the summit. The lemma is rounded, almost truncate, and 
is exceeded by the second glume. 
In the southern states, from Florida to Mississippi, there is another 
striking variation which differs from the typical P. virgatum by having 
the lower rays shorter than or barely equalling the numerous, very 
slender, many-flowered middle ones, the panicle thus having an 
ellipsoid-cylindrical outline which is distinctive. It can not possibly 
be confused with P. virgatum var. confertum Vasey, in which the 
panicle is much larger, the lower rays far exceeding the middle and 
upper, var. confertum thus being scarcely separable from typical P. 
virgatum to which Hitchcock E Chase rightly reduce it. P. virgatum, 
3 Bull. Torr. Bot. Club. 13: 26. 1886. 
