585 
has a good effect in preventing the spread of malarial diseases, and 
that it may serve decidedly practical purposes in this particular. 
Throughout our entire South and Southwest many valuable enterprises 
have been wholly impracticable from causes stated above, and if the 
examples thus set before us were followed throughout the South, there 
is no doubt that many of the dismal, swampy, and marshy districts, 
hitherto entirely worthless, may be transformed into beautiful, pleasant, 
and healthy sections. 
BOTANICAL NOTES. 
By GEORGE VASEY, BOTANIST. 
BROMUS SCHRADERI, OR AUSTRALIAN OATS.—Mr. C. W. Stewart, of 
Montgomery County, Texas, sends to the Department a very interesting 
report of trials by him of various kinds of grasses. He enumerates 
Australian oats, or Bromus schraderi, and ordinary Fescue grass, evi- 
dently under the impression that they are distinct grasses. Of the latter 
he says: 
The ordinary Fescue grass which I find, (as Dr. Lincecum, of Washington County, 
Texas, long since mentioned to be a native plant, growing wild near the Navasota 
River,) isan annual. Of this Iwas able to sow 2 bushels. After being “set,” say the 
second year, it can be grazed from ist February until seeding time, when it resets it- 
self fully, thus relieving one of the care and labor of replanting. It isa most valuable 
winter grass. 
There is evidently a great deal of confusion about this grass, or these 
grasses. In the Monthly Report for July it was stated that the Bromus 
schraderi, Kunth., was the Bromus unioloides, Willd.; and that, although 
it has been called Australian grass, was not an Australian but an Ameri- 
can grass. It has had several synonyms, among them that of Ceratachloa 
_ australis, Spreng.; the specific name australis meaning southern, and 
referring to its locality in the Southern States, and notin Australia. By 
a confusion in this respect it probably came to be called Australian grass 
or Australian oats. The name “ Fescue grass” properly belongs to 
some species of Festuca, which is very nearly related to Bromus. 
In the Patent-Office Report for 1853, page 212, is published a state- 
ment from General Iverson, of Columbus, Ga., concerning a grass which 
he was cultivating, and which he calls Ceratochloa breviaristata. This 
name was applied by Hooker toa grass collected by Douglass in Oregon, 
which has since been described as Bromus breviaristatus by Mr. Watson 
in the “ Botany” of Clarence King’s “‘ Exploration,” who states that it is 
common in the meadows of Nevada, and probably extends from Wash- 
ington Territory to New Mexico. This suggests the thought that per- 
haps even Bromus breviaristatus may be identical with Bromus schraderi, 
alias Bromus unioloides, but further investigation is necessary. 
AQUILEGIA CHYSANTHA.—In the grounds of the Department during 
the past summer one very attractive object was a clump of Aquilegia chry- 
santha, Gray, raised from seed brought by Dr. Palmer from Arizona. 
The plants grow about 4 feet high, branch freely, and when in flower 
present a mass of golden-yellow blossoms, which it is a pleasure to look 
upon. It is very similiar in form to the sky-blue aquilegia (A. cwrulea) 
of the Rocky Mountains, but besides the contrast in color it blooms 
more freely and continues to furnish a succession of flowers during July 
and August. The species was discovered more than twenty years ago 
