70 DAVENPORT ACADEXfY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



lineation, is upon the plan of that of E. acicnlaris. This renders the species a very 

 peculiar and distinct one. Proc. Amer. Acad., X., 77. 



The species occurs s[)aringly at Peoria, Illinois, according to Bren- 

 del's Flora Peoriana, p. 85. The Iowa specimens, which agree well 

 with the descrii)tion, apparendy possess no jjerigynial brisdes. 



Carex Meadii, Dav., var. HEiUiii {Obicy). — This was published in 

 Olney's Carices Bor.-Anier., Fasc. I., No. 22, without comments, as a 

 variety of C. patiicea, 1.., and has never, I believe, been described. The 

 following description will enable collectors to identify the plant : 



Sterile si)ikes with stalk two to four times its length; fertile spikes usually 2, 

 erect, remote, slender-peduncled, rather loosely flowered; sheaths of the foliaceous 

 bracts long and slightly inflated; perigynia and scales as in C. Meadii, except 

 paler, and the former less distinctly nerved; culms slender, somewhat roughish. 



Resembles C. tdanica, for which it is sometimes mistaken, in habit 

 and in the loosely tlowered fertile s])ikes, only with longer peduncles, but 

 C. Meadii in the perigynia and scales; it may be merely an attenuated 

 form of the latter. Moist prairies, Winnebago county, Illinois {Bebb)\ 

 Chicago {Babcock) ; Racine, Wisconsin {Davis) ; and northwestwardly. 

 Collected in Iowa by Mr. Cratty. 



BuCHLOE, Eiigehn. — Flowers difecious, heteromorphous. Male plant: Spikes 

 i-sided, 2-ranked; spikelets 2 to 3-flowered; glumes i-nerved; squaraulte in pairs. 

 Female plant: Spikes i to 3, oblique in the involucrate sheaths of the upper 

 leaves; spikelets i -flowered, crowded; lower glume of the lowest spikelet I to 3- 

 nerved, the lower side adnate to the back of the upper glume; lower glumes of the 

 other spikelets (internal as to the head) i-nerved, free, smaller; upper glumes (ex- 

 ternal) nerveless, connate at the base with the thickened rhachis, at length like a 

 hard, woody involucre; squamula; as in male flowers; ovary lenticular, glabrous; 

 stigmas much longer than the two erect styles. 



B. DACTVLOlDES, Engelm. — Densely tufted, spreading by stolens, forming broad 

 mats; culms 3 to 6 inches long. Male plant: Flowering .stems 4 to 6 inches high; 

 leaves nearly smooth; sheaths strongly bearded at the throat; uppermost spikelets 

 abortive, bristle-form; lower glume ovate-lanceolate, with a scarious margin; upper 

 glume twice longer, ovate; lower palet convex, 3-nerved, upper one 2-nerved; sta- 

 mens 3, Female plant: F'lowering stems much shorter than the leaves, i^ to 2 

 inches high; 3 minute rudimentary stamens; grain free. — Elevated plains from 

 British America to Mexico and New Mexico. Flor. Col., Port. &^ Coitl., 147. 



This is the well-known buffalo-grass. It grows sparingly in the north- 

 west corner of the State, on thin, dry soil covering the rocks, where 

 other i)lants have much difficulty in maintaining themselves. 



Grai'IIEI'IIORUM festiicaceum, Gray. — Panicle loose, rather erect, primary 

 branches subverticillate; spikelets oblong, about 4-fl(Jwered; glumes nearly or quite 

 as long as the spikelets; florets terete, with clustered hairs at the base; outer palet 



