CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE GRAY HERBARIUM OF HARVARD 
UNIVERSITY.— NEW SERIES, NO. XLVI. 
< 
THE GENUS PUCCINELLIA IN EASTERN NORTH 
AMERICA. 
M. L. Fernatp anp C. A. WEATHERBY. 
(Plates 114-117.) 
Tue essentially halophytic genus Puccinellia of Parlatore * has 
always been one of the least understood and, even to agrostologists, 
one of the most perplexing groups of grasses. The species superficially 
so closely simulate one another that by many experienced botanists 
they are merged; while the generic status of the plants is often 
questioned. Thus by some European botanists (for instance, Druce 
and Ostenfeld) the plants are included under Glyceria, by others (as 
scherson & Graebner) treated as a section of Festuca, while Britten 
& Rendle include them in Sclerochloa. In some characters species of 
Puccinellia certainly approach all three of these genera, yet as a whole 
the plants seem to constitute a good genus for which Puccinellia is the 
earliest unequivocal name. 
In Europe, however, the name Puccinellia is not generally in use; 
but those who treat the group as a genus (for instance, Briquet, 
Richter or Rouy) call it Atropis. The status of Atropis as a generic 
name is, nevertheless, open to serious doubt. It is commonly cited 
as dating from Trinius in Ruprecht’s Flores Samojedorum Cisuralen- 
stum,* and Grisebach in Ledebour’s Flora Rossica, but in the enumera- 
iene Fl. Ital. i. 366 (1848). 
Rupr. Beitr. zur Pflanzenk. des Russischen Reiches, ii. 61, 64 (1845). 
