ture, The leaves in my American speci- 
men are involute to their base, but this 
I attribute to their shrinking in the process 
ST i drying, evidently conducted witb little 
or no pressure, as the culm retains its cy- 
-lindrical form almost unaltered. The ab- 
. sence of the root, so different in the two 
.. plants, and the apparent loss of the upper- 
most leaf, precludes the possibility of com- 
= parison with one another in these organs, 
which would have materially assisted in 
Setting the question of their identity at 
test; of which, however, there can hardly, 
I think, be two opinions. 
. There appears to prevail some confusion 
| t authors between Spartina glabra 
and polystachya ; the latter is quoted as 
bu named by Willdenow, but does not oc- 
cur in his edition of the Spec. Plantarum. 
3 I concluded from Michaux’s description of 
Sp. (Trachynotis) polystachya, as far as 
it goes, that his plant and our Southampton 
Species were the same, and Trinius’s ac- 
count of polystachya, which is a much 
A ‘ise um, apparently on the au-: 
“omy of Dr. Boott, nearly banished every 
t from my mind. Not having Müh- 
8s work to refer to, I cannot recall 
ii description of Sp. glabra or of Link's 
ples, to be a dubiou i 
bá s species 
bend allied to polystachya.” The 
Cii glabra seems to be known to 
New i hitherto only as a native of the 
^ orld, unless the Sp. alterniflora! 
t 
is should be observed, that throughout the MSS. 
field ng of the new Bri ; 
eld, not ha 
the S, 
itish Spartina, Dr. Brom- 
‘Othe older 
be identi 
S, een i p synonyms will stand thus 
, isei. L 
ex 8: glara, M e Gall. v. 2. p. 807), 
* Jabb. 3, 
Plants to 
t. 
A DESCRIPTION OF SPARTINA ALTERNIFLORA. 
261 
of Loiseleur, found at Bayonne, be a mo- 
dification or race of glabra, which I am 
told it resembles. That our Southampton 
plant is not a mere variety of Sp. stricta, I 
am now fully convinced, though for some 
time unwillingly disposed to think it so, 
till I had gradually discovered its. numer- 
ous and marked peculiarities. I have vi- 
sited the stations of both species ever since 
the beginning of August, on an average 
twice or thrice a-week, for the purpose of 
studying each in its advance to maturity, 
yet have never fallen in with a single spe- 
imen that, byits equivocal characters, could 
originate a suspicion of the two plants be- 
ing varieties of one another, produced 
solely by casual differences of soil or lux- 
uriance. 
Judging from numerous examples of Sp. 
stricta I have examined in Smith's, Bud- 
dle's, the Linnean, and Banksian* Herba- 
riums, this species does not seem liable to 
variation from soil, climate, or the like 
causes; specimens from Africa agreeing 
exactly with those from our English coasts; 
neither do those from remote parts of our 
own shores differ amongst themselves in 
any respect. Besides, were our alterniflora 
a mere accidental variety of stricta, we 
Walt. Carol. p. 77 (fide Mühlenb.).—1 am not sure 
whether the circumstance of this plant being found in 
France, as well as in England, will give it a further 
claim to be considered an aboriginal native of Europe: 
for in both countries it is only known to inhabit one 
miles above the junction of that r 
issipi. From this plant the S. polystachya ( Trachy- 
inct. See D ray's 
most beautiful specimens are give 
in Vol. I, No. 5, of S. juncea, Willd. ; No. 6, of S. al- 
terniflora, under the name of S. levigata; in Vol. II, 
No. 101, of S. cynosuroides, Willd. ; and No. 102, of 
S. polystachya, Willd.—Ep. ` 
2 Among the specimens (eight in number) of Sp. 
stricta, in the Banksian Herbarium, including one from 
Africa, the rest from various and distant stations, it is 
remarkable there is a single example from z 
ton, but which is no other than the true stricta of that 
locality, and which is, as we have seen, 
rarer of the two growing there now. 
tells me that his Sussex stricta thered 
