Dr, Williams's Floral, Zoological, ^c. 359 



111 the p«dicellate character of their neutral florets. The spikes 

 are not Qxillary in either of them. The branches are axillary ^ 

 of which several sometimes originate from the same axil in the 

 JR. corrugata. Each spike, when fully evolved, is not only 

 pedicellate, but the pedicel, or peduncle, is connected with a 

 culm containing one, two, or more joints.* The culm is not 

 compressed, nor the leaves long in the R. ciliata, as stated by 

 Mr. JVuttall, who appears to have confounded the two species 

 in these, and some other instances. The joints of the rachis 

 in both are fragile, the joints of the culm in neither. 



Another species noticed by Michaux, and included in all our 

 books as the R. dimidiata, L. has long been familiar to tihe south- 

 ern botanists. Whether this be the dimidiata found also on 

 the sandy shores of India, or the compressa of the same country, 

 as suggested by Mr. Elliott, or a species distinct from either, 

 I am not prepared to determine. But J have collected this 

 plant in the Bermudian Isles, at Rio de Janeiro, and Bahia, on 

 the Brazilian coast, and lastly on the island of Flores, near one 

 hundred miles from the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, as well ^ 

 as on the main in the Banda Oriental. 



Art. VII. Floral Calendar kept at Deerjield, Massachu- 

 chusetts^ with Miscellaneous Remarks, hy Dr, Stephen 

 W. Williams, of Deerjield, 



To Professor Silliman. 



Sir, 



jfjLNY thing which has a tendency to elicit facts with regard 

 to the climate of a country must be interesting. I believe 

 that observations upon the time of the germination, foliation, 

 florification, and fructification of plants, afford a much more 

 correct criterion respecting climate than thermometrical, or 

 other meteorological journals. They should be made at the 



* Mr. Jfuttall was probably deceived from having examined the spikes before 

 they were fully evolved. 



