158 The Botanical Gazette. [Mareh, 
P. dichotomum, and may be separated as a variety of it. It 
is evident he has never seen the plant growing or he woull 
hardly make this statement. Its habit is not that of P. dicho- 
tomum, but more that of P. /axifiorum Lam., from whichit 
is abundantly distinct, both in technical characters and range, 
P. laxiflorum, so far as I am aware, does not occur northol 
Maryland. P. boreale, on the other hand, is a northern spe- 
cies, extending along the northern border of the United 
States. I have seen specimens from Newfoundland, Maine, 
Ontario, New York and Minnesota. It was collected by the 
writer at Cairo, in the Catskill Mts., N. Y., in 1893. It was 
quite plentiful there, and it was from field observations that 
my attention was called to its specific differences. The P. lar 
iflorum of Rand and Redfield’s Flora of Mt. Desert (p. 17S) 
belongs here. 
The comments made on my disposition of P. capillare vat 
minor Muhl. are open to the same criticism made aboveil | 
relation to P. boreale; your contributor is evidently not 
familiar with the plant as it occurs in the field. It isc 
tainly as worthy of specific rank as P. frexile (Gatting.) Serib 
Are all these well-marked forms to be combined and this 4 
gregation called a species? I will acknowledge this is an ¢/ 
way to dispose of the matter, and entails little work om 
author, but to those using the resulting work it is a constat 
source of confusion and disappointment 
Now as to the Ixophorus of Schlechtendal. Hackel* rec | 
nizes it, as being equivalent to Setaria, in the following —<— 
Columbia College, New York. 
* Eng. und Prantl, Nat 5 : 
* Biol. Cent Amer - : oe Fam. 7: 36. 1887. 
