248 General Notes. [ April, 
GENERAL NOTES. 
BOTANY. 
CLEISTOGAMOUS FLOWERS IN DANTHONIA —At the end of Au- 
gust last, Mr. Edwin Faxon and I, in the White Mountain Notch, 
collected a form of Danthonia which interested us much ; although 
resembling D. spicata in its panicle, its culm was stouter than we 
ad ever seén in this species, greatly swollen above the nodes, 
readily disarticulating as we sought.to secure a supply (the 
plants being mostly out of season at that time), and showed in 
some specimens a panicle below the terminal one bursting from 
the upper sheath; the root-leaves as well as those of the culm 
were unusually large and long for Q. spicata. : 
has. É. Faxon submitted his brother’s specimens to Mr. © 
. Cha 
C. F. Austin, who, though he thought the plant might be a form 
of D. spicata, described it under the provisional name of D. Faxom, 
observing especially the unusually long and pointed teeth of the 
lower palet, and assuming that the culm of D, spicata is always 
single. ef . 
Not long since, on one of the mountains of Western Vermont, 
came across specimens of D, spicata, which at once suggested 
to me the plants I had seen in the White Mountains, and tearing 
away their sheaths, I found concealed flowers in every specimen. 
Following up this clue to a solution of the puzzle presented by 
the White Mountain plant, I have since examined a large num- 
ber of specimens of Danthonia spicata, and in every instance have - 
detected flowers concealed in the sheaths, even the most depau- 
perate plants with slender culms less than a foot in height show- 
ing at least rudiments of flowers. 
Within the sheath on the side opposite its slit the culm is con- 
cave from the node upward, and the chamber thus formed is 0C- 
cupied by a spikelet one to ten-flowered, sessile on the node, and 
subtended by two awl-shaped, unequal, sometimes subequal, 
plumes, two to six lines long, and very rough on their back; Ff; 
in the case of the stouter plants, and in their upper sheaths, by 
two or more such spikelets, standing still sessile, side by side ; 
or again, as in the case of the White Mountain specimens, by 
small panicles approaching in character the terminal one. In the 
smallest plants these spikelets are often undeveloped beyond n 
pair of short glumes; in all they are simplest toward the base ° 
the culm; in the lower sheath of ordinary plants they are one- 
flowered ; when several-flowered they are filiform, rather monili- 
form, the flowers being so distant on their rachis as barely tO 
touch each other. 
their lower palet is smooth and shining, quite coriaceous, 4° 
though tapering into an acuminate point, is entirely awnless. 
Gch NA ae Fela OO ie Si acd ie SEA ea ee oe Ba Ca SD 
