1906] BRIEFER ARTICLES 67 
mis, oblongis, pilosis: pedicellis glabriusculis; Gluma inferiore flosculis triplo 
breviori 1-, superiore eosdem aequante 7-nervi; Hermaphrodito elliptico, 
laevi neutrum aequante. 
Panicum laxiflorum Spreng. in Mém. de St. Pétersb. II. p. 291. 
Panicum heterophyllum Miihlenb. teste N. ab Es. 
V. spp. Am. bor. (TRATTINICK). 
Culmus tenuis, adscendens, basi ramosus. Folia, quorum plura basi plerum- 
lata: superiora angustiora, dissita. Panicula ovata, axis radiisque glabris. 
Flosculus neuter bivalvis. Hermaphroditus albescens. 
Label accompanying type specimen: “Pan. heterophyllum Muhl. 
(Test. Nees) an Pluckn. Tab. 92 f. 8? ex herb Enslini, spmna Am. bor. 
Trattinick.” 
Specimen =P. columbianum Scribn. 1897. Div. Agros. Bull. 7:78. 
In recent works this name has been applied to a species of the Janu- 
gimosum group having rather stiff foliage and the leaf blades hirsute on 
_ both surfaces. The true P. unciphyllum is easily recognized by the short 
crisp pubescence and the very short ligule, characters not mentioned in 
the original description.—A. S. Hirccock, U. S. Dept. Agric., Wash- 
ington, D. C 
SPOROGENESIS IN PALLAVICINIA. 
Tue August number of the BoTANicaAL GAZETTE contains a paper 
by Mr. A. C. Moore on Sporogenesis in Pallavicinia. 1 regret again to 
ask for space on this matter, but Mr. Moore has so completely (though 
of course inadvertently) misrepresented my own position with regard to- 
the nature and the significance of the quadripolar spindle in the Junger- 
mannieae, and further, the grounds on which he founds his criticism 
appear to me to be so open to objection, that I venture to ask for an oppor- 
tunity of replying to his strictures. 
Firstly, then, as to the significance attached to the quadripolar spindle 
in 1894-5. 
From Mr. Moore’s account it would seem that I regarded, as the 
Most essential feature of its importance, the simultaneous distribution 
of the chromosomes of the dividing nucleus of the mother-cell to the four 
spores that are finally produced. 
I certainly believed that in Pallavicinia decipiens such a distribution 
occurred, and that it resulted from the suppression of the period of rest 
normally intervening between the first and second maiotic divisions. In 
this I may be right, or further investigations may show that, in the species 
In question, I missed the binucleate stage, But this is really not the 
