266 



CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



Wet places, mostly sphagnum bogs or swamps, New Jersey to Georgia; also in 

 Mississippi. 



New Jersey: Forked River, Britton in 1896; Penn Place, Clute in 1899; Toms 

 River, Biclnell in 1900; At- 

 sion, Chase 3535, 3557. 



Maryland: Beltsville, Chase 

 3739. 



North Carolina: Roanoke Is- 

 land, Chase 3227, 3234; West 

 Raleigh, Stanton, 1272; Wil- 

 sons Mills, Chase 3096|, 3097; 

 Onslow County, Ashe in 1899, 

 Chase 3176, 3177, 3196; Wil- 

 mington, Hitchcock 1425, 

 1436|, 1439. 



South Carolina: St. Helena Is- 

 land, Cuthbert in 1887; Orangeburg, Hitchcock 1370, 1379, 1405. 



Georgia: Bulloch County, Harper 829; Augusta, Cuthbert 1160; without locality, 

 Baldwin. 



Mississippi: Biloxi, Hitchcock 1067. 



Fig. 292.— Distribution of P. ensifolium. 



158. Panicum vernale sp. nov. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Vernal plants light green, soft in texture; culms densely cespitose, 15 to 30 cm., rarely 

 to 40 cm. high, very slender, ascending or spreading, glabrous, the nodes glabrous; 

 leaves clustered at the base, the thin, rather soft blades 2 to 7 cm. long, 3 to 5 mm. 

 wide, those of the culm remote, the glabrous sheaths one-fourth to one-third as long 

 as the elongated in ternodes; ligules almost obsolete; blades 0.7 to 2.5 cm. long, 2 to 3 

 mm. wide, glabrous or puberulent on the lower surface, occasionally also on the upper 

 surface, at first erect, becoming spreading or reflexed; panicles finally long-exserted, 

 1.5 to 3 cm. long, nearly as wide, rather few-flowered, the flexuous 

 branches spreading; spikelets 1.4 to 1.5 mm. long, 0.8 mm. wide, 

 obovate-elliptic, subacute, pubescent; first glume about one- 

 fourth as long as the spikelet, subacute; second glume and 

 sterile lemma scarcely as long as the fruit at maturity; fruit 1.2 

 mm. long, 0.7 to 0.8 mm. wide. 



Autumnal form like the vernal form in appearance, branching 



from the base, these culms simple and soon dying to the ground, 



rarely late in the season producing a few short fascicled branchlets 



at the nodes, the scarcely reduced flat blades spreading; winter leaves numerous, soft, 



persistent during the vernal stage, linear, rather abruptly narrowed at the apex, not 



long-acuminate. 



Type U. S. National Herbarium no. 558416, collected in a "sphagnum bog, Lake 

 City, Florida, April 16, 1906," by A. S. Hitchcock (no. 1020). 



This species has been confused with P. ensifolium Baldw., a from which it is dis- 

 tinguished by the more densely cespitose habit and light green, soft foliage, the very 

 numerous basal blades as much as 7 cm. long, flat, linear, not long-acuminate. 



Fig. 293.— P. vernale. 

 From type speci- 

 men. 



a Panicum nitidum ensifolium as described in Chapman's Flora (Fl. South. U. 

 ed. 3. 586. 1897) is P. vernale. 



S. 



