Bicknell : Ferns and flowering plants of Nantucket 1ST 





especially on the branches, where the sheaths are also sparsely 

 pilose ; leaves spreading, 2-5 mm. wide ; spikelets glabrous, 2 

 mm. long. 



* Panicum columbianum Scribn. 



Rather common in dry open places or in partial shade among 



scrub-oaks and pines. 



Among the related species on Nantucket, this is especially 

 marked by the fine, close puberulence of the slender purplish inter- 

 nodes, which often appears more like a glaucescent bloom than a 

 pubescence. The lowermost internodes are, however, sometimes 

 densely appressed-pubescent, and specimens which approach P. 

 meridionale in still other characters denote a very close relation- 

 ship. The leaf-blades are either glabrous or close-puberulent on 

 the lower surface; the spikelets are 1:5-1.75 mm. long. 



* Panicum meridionale Ashe. 



Panicum filiculme Ashe. 



Panicum oricola Hitchc. & Chase, Rhodora 8 : 208. N 1906. 



Perhaps the most common Panicum of Nantucket, growing 

 everywhere in dry sand or sandy soil. Its preference would appear 

 to be for exposed sandy or gravelly levels, but it mingles freely 

 with the close low growth which covers the moorland and hillsides 

 and finds its way into half-shaded openings among the pine groves. 

 Responding to this diversified habitat it shows so great a degree 

 of variation that extreme forms might confidently be taken for 

 distinct species. From one to another of the most divergent forms, 

 however, gradation appears to be so complete and so general that, 

 although not convinced of their actual interrelation, I have found 

 no assured basis for treating them otherwise than as conditions or 

 states of a single rather broad species. 



Three pronounced variants are here especially referred to : 

 One is the plant of exposed sandy places. It is either erect or 

 prostrate and readily forms close mat -like tufts; the pubescence is 

 densely appressed-pilose on the sheaths and internodes and almost 



mary 



later leaves may be quite glabrous ; the panicles are sometimes 

 long-peduncled but mostly little or not at all exserted. This 

 seems to be the plant recently described as P oricola H.tchc. & 



Chase. 



