36 LEAFLETS. 



Riparian state. Assurgent stem less than a foot high from a 

 prostrate basal portion rooting at the nodes : leaves smaller and 

 relatively narrower, truly lanceolate, the leaf ^surface quite stri- 

 gose and veins also strigose rather than muriculate : spikes 

 slender ; bracts as in the normal state. 



Specimens of the terrestrial form described above have been 

 somewhat copiously distributed from Pennsylvania, the habitat 

 of Muhlenburg's P. coccineum with which this plant must doubt- 

 less be identified. In the U. S. Herb, exists a very good sheet 

 obtained at Lily Lake, Luzerne Co., in 1889, by Mr. Small ; also 

 two by Mr. Heller, both from Lancaster Co., in 1889 and 1891 . 

 Plants exactly like these are in hand from the District of Colum- 

 bia, by L. P. Ward, in 1877, and from the banks of the Ohio in 

 Wood County, West Virginia, 1897, by W. M. Pollock. It is 

 scarcely to be doubted that Michaux's var. enter sum is the same. 



The riparian, or perpaps rather the subaquatio state which I 

 venture to refer here, though possibly erroneously, is from 

 Ithaca, New York, no collector's name being given. 



There is another plant, of the size and habit of the above 

 which I dare only designate as a variety of P. coecinea, which 

 I may call 



Var. ASPRBLLA. Eather larger than the type, especially as to 

 foliage ; both faces of the leaf roughened with a minute though 

 not sparse strigulose hairiness, the veins and veinlets rough with 

 an appressed bristly hairiness instead of being merely muricate- 

 scabrous ; bracts of the spike strigose on the back, and usually 

 ciliate with longer hairs. 



The best specimens of this marked variety are from Jackson 

 City, near Washington, D. C, by Mr. E. S. Steele, Aug., 1897 ; 

 and Dr. Britton has distributed nearly the same from Staten 

 Island, N. Y. 



P. PEATiircoLA. Size, habit and general outline of foliage as 

 in the last, but pubescence more dense, that of the midvein also, 

 of very different character, being long, very straight and closely 

 appressed; spikes not large, also short-peduncled, surpassed 

 by the subtending foliage : peduncles glandular-hispidulous ; 

 bracts of the spike elongated-deltoid, rather densely strigose 

 and without obvious ciliation. 



