TRbooora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 26. August, 1924. No. 308. 
A STUDY OF THE GENUS ZIZANIA. 
NorMAN C. FassETT. 
IN attempting to place some unusual specimens of Zizania collected 
in the summer of 1923 near the city of Quebec, the writer found it 
difficult to determine to his satisfaction the precise difference between 
Z. palustris and Z. aquatica as defined by Professor A. S. Hitchcock 
in the seventh edition of Gray's Manual. Examination of ihe spike- 
lets, however, showed that there was a distinct difference, appaiently 
recently overlooked, in the texture of the pistillate lemmas; thcse 
of the northern narrow-leaved form (Z. aquatica of the Manual) 
are firm and tough, while those of the southern broad-leaved form 
(Z. palustris of the Manual) are thin and papery. This character, 
combined with the greater height, wider leaves, and more luxuriant 
inflorescence of the southern form, would appear sufficient for specific 
distinction, were it not for the fact that in the Middle West there is a 
grass which combines the characters of these two, having the large 
vegetative growth of the southern plant, and the firm lemma of the 
northern one. 
The Zizania palustris of Hitchcock's treatments was known as Z. 
aquatica until 1908, when he applied the latter name to the small 
plant of the North. Linnaeus had based Z. aquatica upon Gronovius's 
Zizania of the Flora Virginica, page 189, and upon Arundo alta gracilis, 
foliis viridi caeruleis, locustis minoribus, Sloan. Hist. Jamaica, page 
110, plate 67. The plant of Gronovius was undoubtedly the broad- 
leaved one, as the narrow-leaved plant is not found south of New 
