BULLETIN 
OF THE 
TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB. 
Vo I ■ X.l New York. August. 188 3. [No. 8. 
Notes on Spartina, 1/ 
By F. Lamson Scribner, 
(Plate XXXVI.) 
Mr. Eentham, in his revision of the genera of Graniine?e, has re- 
aioved Spartina from Chloridea^ and placed it in the Chamoeraphis 
group of Paniceae, associating it with the foreign genera Chammraphis 
and Xerochloa of Brown and with Sienotaphnim^ Trin., represented in 
the Southern States by S, Americanum^ Schrank. The student whose 
observations are confined to American grasses will see little in com- 
mon between Spartina and Penesefum or Stenotaphrum, the former 
immediately preceeding and the latter folio wing Jt; and he will be 
little inclined to accept this new arrangement as one that is at all 
naturaL He will continue to feel that the relations of Spartina are 
with the Chloridese, a tribe in which it has heretofore been placed, and 
allow the fact of the articulation of the pedicels below the outer 
glumes as an exceptional character in this genus, as it is allowed in 
some others which are included in Poace^. 
^ In defining the Chamceraphis group Mr. Bentham states that the 
spikelets are nearly those of Paniciim^ but with the fruiting- glume 
usually less hardened; the inflorescence is nearly that of the paspa- 
loid Panicaox of Chlorideae, but distinguished from the former by the 
rhachis of the partial spikes or fascicles or branches of the panicle^ 
being produced beyond the spikelets into a more or less rigid point. 
From the Chloridese they are separated by the articulation of the 
pedicel below the spikelet. 
Exceptional cases presenting this leading character of the Pani- 
ceae, /. e,^ the articulation of the pedicel below the outer glumes, 
occur in Poacese and in other tribes besides Chloridea?, and may 
not Spartina form an exception here? There are exceptions also to 
the character cited by Mr. Bentham as separating the Cham^raphese 
from the paspaloid Panica. In Pamcum tenuiculmiwi^ Chapman, 
(non Meyer) from Florida, and in the East Indian P. mucronatum, 
Roth, (two species which fnay prove to be identical) the rhachis ol 
the lateral spikes or racemes is prolonged beyond the spikelets into a 
rigid, subulate mucro or point. 
Without entering further into the question respecting the proper 
position of Spartina, which I feel in no wise competent to discuss, I 
would like to record here a few cases of abnormally developed spike- 
lets of one species of this genus that have come under my notice, 
drawing no conclusions more than to state that my observations have 
led me to regard Spartina polystachya, VViUd., rather as a variety of 
