194 Bicknell : Ferns and flowering plants of Nantucket 



seem to bridge the differences between them. Some of the Nan- 

 tucket specimens show the slender bracts at the base of the panicle- 

 branches just as described by Austin, but the culms are not 

 branched except that one shows a secondary panicle starting from 

 one of the upper nodes. 



Spartina cynosuroides (L.) Willd. 



Common, sometimes occurring far from marshland on the 

 dry commons. At Quaise and Eatfire is found a stout form 

 having numerous crowded spikes, sometimes as many as forty, 

 which is suggestive of 5. polystachya (Michx.) Ell. The record 

 of the latter from " Eatfire and elsewhere" would therefore seem 

 to require confirmation. 



* Spartina juncea (Michx.) Willd. 



Frequent or common, usually in dry white sand back of the 

 beaches, sometimes in cranberry bogs near the shore. Later- 

 flowering than 5. patens, the spikes being uniformly in fresh con- 

 dition at the middle of September when those of the latter are 

 mostly dried. Certain examples suggest intergradation with S. 



but the plants usually appear very distinct. 5. juncea, 

 although sometimes closely cespitose, often produces scattered 

 culms or only a few together from stout running rootstocks ; it 

 becomes as large as 12 dm. high with spikes 6 cm. long. Tufted 

 forms agree closely with type material of 5. caespitosa Eaton, but, 



as a rule, have less slender, more spreading leaves and larger 

 spikes. 



Spartina patens (Ait.) Muhl. 



Everywhere in salt marshes. 



Spartina glabra pilosa Merrill. 



Common along shores and tidal creeks. 



Spartina glabra alterniflora (Lois.) Merrill. 



Specimens referred here are scarcely more than reduced states 

 of the last, having few slender spikes of more separated spikelets, 

 with obscurely puberulent or glabrous scales. 

 Phalaris canariensis L. 



patens 



M 



the 



authority of Doctor Swan. 



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picU 



mere garden 



