16 



a century) was that a genus was not properly founded unless spe- 

 cies were given with it, and on this basis alone they still persist- 

 ently refer Linnsean genera to the Species Plantarum where no 

 genera were described but had been previously. On this basis Pan- 

 icularia has no standing, but with a Brittonian such a trifling 

 thing as consistency must not interfere when there is a rich pay 

 streak of new names in sight. It has been a time-honored custom, 

 which is only another way for showing the mature and unbiased 

 judgment of several generations of botanists, to ignore old genera 

 not accompanied by species unless they were taken up later by oth- 

 ers and in the latter case the genus was duly credited to its first 

 describer, which is just. For example an extreme case is Calam- 

 agrostis which was first published by Adanson (since Linnaean 

 time) who credited it to Dioscorides, but species were first made by 

 Gmelin. So the proper credit for the genus is Calamagrostis Dios- 

 corides in Adanson Fam. and Gmelin Syst., and not Calamagrostis 

 Gmelin as the unjust Brittonian system would have it. In the 

 case of Panicularia the genus was ignored and no species ever 

 published in it till the evangel of the Brittonian hair splitters ap- 

 peared in Otto Huntze in 1898, who like them, cared more for a 

 little notoriety than the good of botany, and renamed all the spe- 

 cies of Glyceria as Panicularia, though Glyceria was the first gen- 

 us to have species described in it, and was published in 1810. It 

 therefore seems right for Hitchcock to retain Glyceria in the new 

 Gray's Manual. 



WASATCHIA. 



Wasatchia Kingii (Watson). 



Poa Kingii Watson Bot. King's Exp. 387, Festuca confinis Va- 

 sey. This genus has been relegated to Festuca where it is a worse 

 misfit than in Poa. Watson as a field botanist recognized its simi- 

 lar habit to that of Poa Fendleriana and glumaris. Some Poas 

 are dioecious occasionally or at least sterile, this is always dioecious 

 a feature not recognized before so far as I remember, and it differs 

 from Poa conspicuously in the coarse and rigid leaves and in the 

 texture, in the thick and woody root, and in forming large ring- 

 like tufts often 6 feet in diameter from its creeping rootstocks. 

 Its spikelets are more like those of Melica than any, particularly 

 the fertile ones. But its nearest relative is certainly Distichlis. It 

 is not related to Festuca. Distichlis is now the receptacle of some 

 odds and ends such as Eragrostis obtusifolia and Poa Texana, but 

 it seems like stretching the genus too much. Our plant is quite 



