36 
smaller in stature, commonly not exceeding 3 cm. in height, 
sometimes réduced even to I cm., while the stems assume a re- 
curved-spreading position. A similar modification of size and 
habit occasionally appears in other parts of the continent, appar- 
ently due to an environment whose essential character is a reduction 
of the full amount of moisture habitually required by the species. 
In Kansas, Texas, New Mexico and Northern Mexico occurs 
abundantly a form the principal character of which is its unusual 
height, 15 to 20cm. This is the plant which was called by Nees 
von Esenbeck Hemucarpha drummondu. But it does not seem 
desirable to retain this as a varietal name, since these specimens 
do not appear distinguishable from individual large specimens of 
the type form collected in localities far removed from this region. 
Another related form, however, confined so far as known to Texas 
and Kansas, possesses additional characters and requires varietal 
separation. 
HEMICARPHA MICRANTHA ARISTULATA Var. nov. 
Plant erect, the tufts 9 to 20 cm. high; spikes I or 2, at matur- 
ity 2.5 to 5 mm. long, made conspicuously squarrose by the awns 
of the bractlets; bractlets about 1.5 mm. in length, narrowly rhom- 
bic-obovate, abruptly contracted into a stout, green, spreading awn 
nearly as long as the body of the scale; achenium black, marked 
as in the type form. 
Type specimen in the United States National Herbarium, col- 
lected in the year 1888, in Texas, by Mr. G, C. Nealley. 
The leading character of this plant, as indicated by its varietal 
name, is the spreading awns of its bractlets, which give the spikes 
a conspicuously squarrose appearance. Its large size and black 
instead of brown achenia serve also to distinguish it, since black — 
achenia occur but rarely in the type form of the species. This — 
variety was collected also in Kingman county, Kansas, in Septem- _ 
ber, 1891, by Mr. M. A. Carlton. It seems to intergrade with the — 
type form through specimens collected in the Southern Great — 
Plains region. 
HEMICARPHA OCCIDENTALIS A. Gray. 
Hemicarpha occidentalis A. Gray, Proc. Amer. Acad. 7: 391 : 
(1868). Type specimen collected in Yosemite Valley, California | 
by Mr. H. N. Bolander. 
