370 | BICKNELL: FERNS AND 
plants 7 cm. high, but many not over 1 cm. and bearing only a 
terminal spikelet. These diminutive plants were massed so thickly 
over damp sandy tracts as to have the appearance of beds of 
flowering moss. 
Poa pratensis L. A variety that grows in sandy soil, often in 
pure sand, is low and pale glaucous green, with firm culms and 
contracted purple panicles, the leaves often slightly pubescent 
on the upper surface and on the sheaths. In such forms the middle 
and marginal veins of the palea were found to be more bearded 
than in the ordinary pasture form. 
Pantcularia grandis (S. Wats.) Nash. P. americana (Torr.) 
MacM. Of luxuriant growth about Millbrook swamp and along 
ditches west of the town. 
Panicularia acutiflora (Torr.) Kuntze. Millbrook swamp; 
head of Hummock Pond; Polpis; Quidnet. 
Panicularia pallida (Torr.) Kuntze. A reduced form, abun- 
dant in Rotten Pumpkin Pond, June 11, I9II, seemed to answer 
quite exactly to descriptions of var. Fernaldii Hitche., but were 
regarded by Professor Hitchcock, to whom specimens were sub- 
mitted, as being scarcely typical. Ina recent paper on the “‘Status 
of Glyceria Fernaldii”” (Rhodora 19: 75-76. 1917) Dr. Harold 
St. John has placed this grass in specific rank under the generic 
name Glyceria, marking it off sharply from P. pallida by certain 
characters hitherto unnoticed, among which very small anthers 
and reflexed lower branches of the panicle seem especially note- 
worthy. By the test of these characters the Nantucket plant is 
definitely excluded from G. Fernaldii, its anthers, even in the dried 
state measuring as much as I-1.5 mm. long, and all the panicle 
branches remaining flexuously ascending or erect. In other re- 
spects, however, such as narrow leaves and small few-flowered 
spikelets its agreement with G. Fernaldii seems to be quite perfect. 
On Long Island the problem is even more confused. Some 
Long Island specimens appear to have all the characters of G. 
Fernaldu except reflexed panicle branches; other equally small- 
anthered forms are as broad leaved as typical P. pallida; in yet 
others the size of the anthers is half way between the two extremes. 
It sometimes occurs that summer rains following a drought will 
