THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



11 



surface of the mud. I had the good fortune to stumble upon 

 several specimens on the shore of Hayden Island, opposite 

 Vancouver, Washington, on October 11, 1919, while engaged 

 in a search along the shore of the Columbia for another species 

 of the mud-flats — Limosella aquatica. The grass has a few- 

 flowered umbel-like panicle, usuafly not over 2 cm. long, often 

 partly included in the dilated upper sheath, and the tiny flow- 

 ers are entirely destitute of glumes. 



The genus belongs to the tribe Agrostideae, and its near- 

 est relative with us among the better-known grasses is prob- 



CoLEANTHUs SuBTiLis — Natural size 



ably Alopeciirus, although the arctic-circumpolar genus 

 Phippsia, which extends within our limits to the alpine sum- 

 mits of the Rockies, and which is also a dwarf, seems to belong 

 very near it. 



Whether Coleantlms is to be regarded as indigenous or 

 introduced along the Columbia is a question that may never 

 be satisfactorily settled. Probably no known grass has a more 

 eccentric recorded range. Originally described from the 

 mountains of Bohemia in 1816, it has been found also in low- 



