BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



3 



views of Linnaeus, Robert Brown, whose name seems to be synony- 

 mous with "sagacity," Kunth, Trineus, Nees von Esenbeck, etc. 

 The statement that Steudel's "Enumeratio Plantarum Glumacearum" 

 is the worst production of the kind he has ever met with is very in- 

 structive. The law of priority is sensibly set aside in certain well 

 known genera, and Sorghum is retained rather than the earlier Blu- 

 menbachia, Cynodon instead of Fibrichia, etc. The arrangement in 

 tribes is as follows : — 



A. 



Eleocliai'is (lispar, 11. SJJ. -Culms slender, roundish, several 

 from the same root, erect or ascending, or with some of the shorter 

 ones recurved, very unequal in length, 1^-8 inches high, mostly 1-4 

 inches Roots fibrous, tufted, annual. Spikes ovate to ovate-oblong, 

 obtuse, 1-3 lines long, 15 to 40 flowered; scales thickish, firm, oval, 

 obtuse, brown with paler margins; keel green, becoming lighter col- 

 ored with age. Stamens 2, style 2 cleft. Bristles 6-8, downwardly 

 barbed, mostly shorter than the achenium. but variable in length. 

 Achenium biconvex, obovate, shining, brown to nearly black, rough- 

 ened with oblong striae, tipped with a flattened or saucer-shaped 

 tubercle. 



In sand or gravel near the margins of "sloughs," August and 

 September, Whiting, Lake Co., Ind. 



The plant may mature its fruit in shallow water, but during the 

 two seasons in which it has been observed, it was found only in the 

 dry bottom of a shallow pond. It was first detected in August, 1880. 

 Looking for it in the early part of July ot the present year, when the 

 bottom of the pond was covered with water, the plants had apparent- 

 ly started, as was indicated by tufts of short stems that could not be 

 identified with any other plants growing there. It is most like E. 

 multiflora, Chapman, a Florida plant, but differs in several characters, 

 particularly in the presence of bristles and fewer flowers in a head. 

 One of the most striking peculiarities is the remarkable difference in 

 the length of the culms, some of the heads being scarcely above the 

 surface of the ground, or nearly sessile on the root, on stems, barely 

 %. of an inch long, while other stems from the same root may be 8 

 inches high. Since the short stems bear ripe fruit, they have evi- 

 dently attained their growth. The plant seems to germinate in the 

 water, but to mature its fruit when the water fails. — E. J. Hill, En- 

 gltwood, HI., Dec, r88r. 



