﻿Bicknell: Two new Grasses 107 



Chaetochloa perennis (Curtiss). 



C. glauca var. perennis Curtiss in Beal's Grasses of North 

 America, 2: 156. 1896. 



This grass, although very near to C. versicolor, differs in some 

 noteworthy characters. It is even paler and more glaucous 

 and grows in dense erect tufts, the culms closely branched 

 from the base ; the lower sheaths are more broadly flattened, 

 the leaves broader and less attenuate and provided towards 

 the base with long white hairs arising singly from scattered 

 papillae; the ligule is sometimes scarcely fringed; the spikes 

 are often longer, the spikelets at full maturity broader and 

 less pointed, oblong or obovate-oblong and obtuse, the first 

 and second scales shorter, broader and more obtuse, the second 

 one 5-7-nerved instead of mostly 3-nerved, the glume of the per- 

 fect flower finely rugulose and remaining green at maturity or 

 sometimes merely tipped with purple. The shorter first and sec- 

 ond scales, as compared with C. versicolor, seem to be perfectly con- 

 stant ; the first scale is about one-third the length of the spikelet, 

 the second scale one-half its length ; in C. versicolor the respective 

 scales are one-half and two-thirds or three-quarters the length of 



the spikelet. 



Mr. George V. Nash, who has endeavored to ascertain whether 

 this apparently common grass has not had some previous history, 

 points out to me that it is apparently the same as Muhlenberg's 

 Pamcum laevigatum in Elliott's Bot. S. C. and Ga. 1 : 112. 1817 ; 

 Muhlenberg's name is preoccupied, however, by Panicum laeviga- 

 tum of Lamarck (Fl. France, 3 : 578. 1778). In the herbarium of 

 Columbia University is a sheet from the Torrey Herbarium hold- 

 ing a flowering specimen of a Chaetochloa labeled Panicum laeviga- 

 tum apparently in Elliott's handwriting and bearing his name in a 

 corner of the label. This, if not part of Elliott's type, at least may 

 be taken to be authentic material and, though very young, is cer- 

 tainly to be referred to the plant here raised to specific rank. 

 Another sheet from Chapman's herbarium bearing imperfect speci- 

 mens of apparently the same thing is labeled Setaria glauca, var. 

 laevigata, coast of Florida. Still other specimens are labeled 

 Setaria flava Kunth, a grass unknown to me, but which Mr. Nash 

 assures me is quite a different South American species. 



