32 The Ottawa Naturalist. [May 



MEETINGS OF THE BOTANICAL BRANCH. 



February 25th, 1911, at the home of Mr. J. J. Carter. 

 Meeting addressed by Dr. M. O. Malte, members present, 

 besides the host and the speaker, Prof. John Macoun, Messrs. 

 Whyte, G. H. Clark, W. T. Macoun, Attwood, East ham, Newman, 

 Sirett, Eddy and Groh. 



Dr. Malte gave a short report of some of the results obtained 

 when studying the grasses of the Geological Survey Herbarium. 

 These results must be regarded as only preliminary, as a decisive 

 knowledge of the Canadian grasses can only be obtained by 

 studies in nature. 



When beginning the study of the grasses, Dr. Malte realiz- 

 ed the necessity of paying the most careful attention especially to 

 the construction of the flowers and spikelets, these parts of the 

 grass-plant being less variable than the vegetative characters and 

 forming a safer basis for the exact judgment of the systematic 

 value and relationship of the different forms. Especially when 

 trying to make a natural system out of a polymorphous genus, 

 the main groups, each of which contain a number of different 

 species, will be found very easy and with more accuracy, if based 

 upon essential flower characters. This was demonstrated in 

 the genus Panicum. 



In grouping the Canadian species of Panicum, about thirty 

 in number, according to the construction of their spikelets, four 

 main groups will be obtained. When comparing the different 

 species of each of these groups, they all show the most striking 

 correlation between flower-construction and general appearance. 

 One type of spikelet is thus combined with a certain type of 

 panicle and a special general character of the leaves ; another 

 tvpe of spikelet corresponds to another type of panicle and 

 another shape of the leaves, etc. The closer studying of the 

 flowers has also been of important value for the distinct limiting 

 of polymorphous species. In fact, the microscopical examin- 

 ation of the spikelets of different specimens of a polymorphous 

 species has often shown, that what has been regarded as one 

 species, in reality is a mixture of two or more species. The 

 difficulty of recognizing these systematically independent species 

 has often been due to the fact, that the descriptions, given by 

 some grass-monographers, do not at all agree with the original 

 descriptions of the species in question, and even are based upon 

 more than one type, some characters having been picked up from 

 one type, other characters from ano'her. Such confusion of 

 species will for instance, be found within the genus Calamagrostis. 

 The Greenlandian C. hyperboreahge. is thus supposed to be 

 widely spread all over Canada. In fact, no one of the Canadian 





