152 H. G. SIMMONS. [sec. arct. exp. fram 



doubted E. latifolium. There is still another name for the same plant, 

 also from 1800, viz., E. triquetrum, Hoppe, Arten. d. Wollgr. Besides 

 HoppE here has E. angustifolium, which he identifies with the E. 

 polystachium /? of Linnaeus and with the above quotation from 

 ScHEUCHZER, Agrostogr., p. 308 (which Linnaeus himself referred to 

 his y), and also E. latifolium, which he identifies with the « of Lin- 

 naeus and with the "Linagrostis panicula ampliore" of Scheuchzer, 

 Agrostogr., p. 306. 



Even though perhaps Roth and Koch have had no clear idea about 

 the species, I think it may be inferred from the above examination, 

 that the right names for the three plants must be E. polystachium, L., 

 E. latifolium, Hoppe, and E. angustifolium. Roth, the latter with the 

 synonyms E. gracile, Koch, and E. triquetrum, Hoppe. 



As already mentioned, later european authors have generally iden- 

 tified the main form of the E. polystachium, L., with the plant formerly 

 called E. angustifolium,, and they have taken up the Linnaean name 

 for it again, but american florists have since the time of Pursh held 

 another view of the matter. This author has, in his Fl. Am. sept., 1, 

 p. 58, both E. polystachium and E. angustifolium. As his quotation 

 of Engl. Bot., T. 563, shows, he uses the first name partly at least, for 

 E. latifolium, that is to say, he uses the names in the same sense as 

 Roth, and later authors have followed him, for instance Torrey and 

 Britton & Brown. The (;ause for this may be sought partly in an 

 error about that which Linnaeus regarded as the main form of his 

 species, but also in a new difficulty which arises therein, that the 

 two species, clearly distinct as they are in Europe in several constant 

 characters, are not so in America. There intermediate forms are found, 

 which have puzzled the florists a good deal. Rob. Brown, Chlor. Melv., 

 p. 26, says that the arctic Eriophorum specimens that he had had for 

 examination were "quasi mediae inter E. angustifolium et E. poly- 

 stachium forsan ab utroque distinctae". Among them he found forms 

 with glabrous as well as with scabrous peduncles to the spikes. 



This also is the case with my specimens, even though quite glabrous 

 peduncles are rarely found, and the same variation is met with in the 

 Greenland specimens of the Copenhagen herbarium. The arctic form 

 must, however, because of its terete culms, flat spike-peduncles, long, 

 channeled leaves, large spikes and fusiform achenes, doubtless be refer- 

 able to E. polystachium in the sense in which it is here taken. How 

 the southern american forms ought to be placed is another question 

 (cf. Fernald, N. Am. Erioph.), 



