188 Bicknell: Ferns and flowering plants of Nantucket 



A second well-defined variant grows in weakly spreading 

 ascending or erect tufts and is closely much-branched ; the leaves 

 are thinner, softer, and more pilose than in the plant first described 

 and more loosely soft-pubescent on the lower surface, and the 

 sheaths and internodes are often conspicuously and densely villous ; 

 the panicles are short-peduncled or included, usually with slender- 

 pedicel led spikelets. Certain examples of this form are almost 

 identical with specimens of P. meridional* collected by Ashe in 

 North Carolina. Other examples seem to meet precisely the 

 description of Panicum unciphyllum tJiinium Hitchc. & Chase, 

 Rhodora 8 : 209. N 1906. 



A third marked form is the plant of the dry overgrown com- 

 mons and moorland. This corresponds closely with specimens of 

 P. filiculme named by Ashe. It is much more slender than the 

 contrasted forms, with much sparser and looser pubescence and 

 very narrow, firm, pale-green leaves ; the small panicle is com- 

 monly long-peduncled. Very diminutive forms of this occur, in 

 which the panicle is wholly included. In this and in the form first 

 mentioned the primary panicles have mostly lost all their spikelets 

 before the end of August. 



A study of these several forms in their early flowering stages 



would doubtless throw considerable light on their mutual rela- 

 tionships. 



Panicum unciphyllum Trin. 



Frequent or common in low grounds or grassy places. Pri- 

 mary panicles with kw or no spikelets remaining. A reduced and 

 slender form occurs in cranberry bogs and sandy wet places ; it is 

 more sparsely and loosely pubescent than the usual form, with the 

 leaves narrower, firmer, and paler green. 



Ashe 



Included 



Panicum very 



ipJiy 



material, seems to be now quite generally referred to P. tennes- 

 seensc. It is uncommon on Nantucket, where two definite forms 

 are to be noted : one is rather thinly villous-pubescent and has 

 slender ascending culms not branched from the lower nodes, and 

 thin, rather bright-green leaves minutely but not densely pubes- 

 cent on the lower surface. This was found only in woods on 



