Notes on grasses. 
GEORGE V. NASH. 
My recent articles on ‘‘New or Noteworthy American 
Grasses,” published in the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical 
Club, seem to have caused considerable consternation among 
the agrostologists of the Department of Agriculture at Wash- 
ington, judging from the haste in which they have criticised 
t This haste has evidently led them into the commission 
of obvious errors, which would have been avoided had more 
care been taken in investigating the facts. 
An €xception is made to my disposition of Agrostis brevi- 
folta of Nuttall. I am aware that until the type of this 
Plant can be seen, absolute certainty of identification is im- 
Possible. The character given by Nuttall, to which your 
Correspondent alludes, ‘‘culms solid and compresse 
_ fot terete but solid and ancipital,” is one which is pecul- 
‘arly applicable to the plant I have referred to Agrostis brev- 
ifolia, and which your contributor thinks is the Vilfa Rich- 
ardsonis of Trinius. In the plant I have referred to Agrostis 
brevifolia the culms are solid, much compressed, and even 
ancipital. In the type of Vilfa cuspidata Torr., preserved in 
the Columbia College Herbarium, the culm, on the contrary, 
mete With the exception of a slight flattening on one side, 
ane Never approaches ancipital in any degree. If this char- 
ater is to be considered as ‘‘essential and decisive,” it does 
‘ss “rgue well for the equivalency of Agrostis brevifolia Nutt. 
" Vilfa cuspidata Torr. 
nig Sait a lack of research is shown by ait cr hoe tree 
Te one of Steudel’s Cryptostachys vaginata. Steu 
genus C, the specimen, on which he founded si pina he 
lifery 1) Ptostachys, in the following words: ‘‘Panicum prc 
m Hrbr. Amerc. un. it. 1837.”1 There is a specimen in 
ae Columbia College Herbarium with a printed label bearing 
S aeflora’ Torr.  Steudel; like many others, applied Tor- 
: 1 consideration 
Y's name to the wrong plant. But a carefu 
1 
S 
70. Pl. Gram. 181, 1855. 
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