HITCHCOCK AND CHASE — NORTH AMERICAN PANICUM. 



267 



Fig. 294.— Distribution of P. vernale. 



All the specimens cited below were collected in the spring. Since localities, like 

 Lake City, Eustis, and Miami, Florida, where this species was found in March and 

 April, were visited in September without its being found, it would seem that the 

 plants usually die to the ground in early summer and that the secondary branches 

 appear only rarely. In Hitchcock 931 and 958£ a few sparingly branched dead culms 

 are attached, being the only branching culms seen. 



Two collections, Hitchcock 809 and Nash 424, have blades pubescent on the upper 

 surface, while Hitchcock 941 and 1092 

 have some blades that are pubescent 

 and some that are glabrous on the up- 

 per surface. Hitchcock's nos. 1066 and 

 1092 have glabrous spikelets. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



Moist places, especially sphagnum 

 bogs, Florida to Mississippi. 



Florida: Baldwin, Hitchcock 1004; 

 Lake City, Bitting 19, Hitch- 

 cock 1020; Apalachicola, Chap-* 

 man; Eustis, Nash 273 in part, 



424, Hitchcock 795, 798, 809; Dunedin, Tracy 6699; Braidentown, Hitchcock 

 958£, 959, 960; Johns Pass Tracy 7180; Tampa, Hitchcock 936, 941; Miami, 

 Hitchcock 931, 942. 



Alabama: Flomaton, Hitchcock 1041. 



Mississippi: Biloxi, Hitchcock 1066; Mississippi City, Hitchcock 1092. 



159. Panicum curtifolium Nash. 



Panicum curtifolium Nash, Bull. Torrey Club 26: 569. 1899. "Collected by S. M. 

 Tracy at Ocean Springs, Mississippi, May 2, 1898, no. 4598." The type, in Nash's 

 herbarium, consists of a tuft with two slender vernal culms about 30 cm. long, begin- 

 ning to branch at the middle nodes. The blades are glabrous above except at the 

 base and glabrous or sparsely pubescent beneath. In a duplicate type in the National 

 Herbarium several blades have a few scattered hairs on the upper surface. 



Panicum earlei Nash, Bull. Torrey Club 26: 571. 1899. "Type collected at Auburn, 

 Lee Co., Alabama, on May 7, 1898, by Messrs. F. S. Earle and C. F. Baker, no. 1532." 

 The type, in Nash's herbarium, consists of a tuft of early vernal culms 8 to 15 cm. 

 high, with immature panicles. The blades are sparsely pilose on the upper surface. 



Panicum austro-montanum Ashe, Journ. Elisha Mitchell Soc. 16: 85. 1900. "Along 

 mountain streams of Northern Alabama and the adjacent parts of Tennessee. Type 

 material is preserved in my herbarium." The type specimen could not be found 

 in Ashe's herbarium. In the National Herbarium is a specimen from Sand Moun- 

 tain, Alabama, June, 1899, sent by the Biltmore Herbarium, which was compared 

 by E. D. Merrill in 1900 and said by him to be identical with the type of P. austro- 

 montanum. It is also the same as a specimen from western North Carolina sent by 

 Ashe as representing P. austro-montanum, and furthermore agrees with the original 

 description except that the spikelets are 1 mm. long, instead of 0.7 mm. long. The 

 Biltmore specimen agrees with the types of P. curtifolium and P. earlei. 



description. 



Vernal form in dense colonies, the culms not crowded in the clump; culms 10 to 

 30 cm. high, slender, weak, angled, erect or spreading, glabrous or sometimes with a 

 few scattered hairs, the nodes sparsely bearded; sheaths much shorter than the 

 elongated internodes, striate-angled , sparsely spreading-pilose, ciliate, especially at 



