KHi BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



a large amount of material to select from, we can promise the choicest of 

 reading. It is desirable to make the articles as varied as is possible in a 

 single branch of science, but we have concluded not to publish bare lists of 

 plants as not bemg of sufficient interest to the general reader. A large 

 edition of this number has been sent out as a specimen number, and we 

 hope that it will procure an immediate and favorable response from all who 

 receive ^t. We can, as formerly, promise our readers contributions from 

 the leading botanists of the country, but we want notes from the rank and 

 file as well, for it is from them after all that our chief support must come. 

 We press our claims upon you now with more boldness as we have safely 

 lived through the experimental age and have an established enterprise to 

 call upon you to support. 



Panicum littoeale, n. sp. — Mr. Chas. Mohr has sent me from Mobile, 

 Alabama, specimens of nPanicuni which 1 cannot find described. It grows 

 among the drifting sands of the Gulf coast, having strong running rhizo- 

 mas, sending up from the joints upright culms about a foot high, very 

 leafy below, the sheaths large and loose, those of the lower joints, where 

 covered with sand, being destitute of blade; nbove, the leaves are rigid, dis- 

 tichous, standing out at a strong angle from the culm, 3 to 4 inches long, 

 2 to 3 lines broad at the base and gradually narrowed to the acuto point, 

 becoming convolute, the sheaths, margins and lower surfaces sparsely hairy, 

 the upper leaves rather distant and narrower; the panicle shortly exserted, 

 2 to 3 inches long, of 5 or 6 branches, single at the joints, but little 

 branched and loosely fiowered and not pubescent; the spikelets are small, 

 about a line long, smooth, the sterile flower staminate, of 2 palets, the 

 lower glume very short, broad, obtuse, i or i as long as the upper, which is 

 ovate, pointed, T-nerved, and about equalling the upper flower. 



In habit this species seems related to P. <iiiian(m, Ell., though it is small- 

 er, with shorter leaves and much smaller panicle and floweor. From its 

 habitat Mr. Mohr suggests that this may properly be called P. littorale, in 

 which I concur, as I cannot find that name previously appropriated. Mr. 

 Chas. Mohr will furnish specimens on applicatiou. — Geo. Vasey. 



In the Gazette for December, where I spoke of Frax/nus Curtissii there 

 should have been a reference to Dr. Gray's Synop. Flora N. A., page 75. — 

 G.V. 



Shortia galacifolia re-discovered.— a hundred years ago the elder 

 Michaux collected, somewhere in the mountains of North Carolina, a 

 speciinen of a Pyrolaceous-looking plant, out of flower, or rather with 



