Botany. 351 
BOTANY:.! 
THE Rootstocks OF LEERSIA AND MUHLENBERGIA.’ — 
Leersia virginica Willd., grows in wet, shady places, and starts 
rather late in the spring. Late in autumn the parts below ground 
are found to consist mainly of some slender exhausted and dea 
rootstocks, from one to three or four centimetres long. The inter- 
nodes of these slender exhausted rootstocks are covered for a part 
of their length by sheaths of rudimentary leaves, early bearing a 
very short blade. 
A portion, perhaps one-third, of the nodes bear from one to four 
thickened, scaly rootstocks, which contain nourishment for start- 
ing young plants the next spring. In some cases one or more 
scaly rootstocks appear near the apex of a similar rootstock which 
survived the winter. 
The surviving rootstocks are slightly flattened, one to four centi- 
metres long by three to five mm. in diameter, covered with scales, 
and are mostly simple, though some of them have short branches. 
he scales are brown, alternating and two ranked, and on inter- 
nodes which are from one to two mm. long. The bases of the 
scales are thickened and abound in plant food. 
Leersia oryzoides Swartz, also has rootstocks, the main axis of 
which is not very unlike that of the former species, though in 
autumn they are rather stouter, and most of them remain alive and 
gorged with plant food for use on the approach of the succeeding 
Spring. Many of the nodes bear short, pointed, solid branches, 
with four to eight nodes. The scales of these buds are mere 
rings or shreds, and are not filled with nourishment in autumn. 
he fundamental differences, then, between the rootstocks of 
these two species are as follows: 
1. In winter the main rootstocks of Leersia virginica are 
dead, while those of L. oryzoides are alive and abound in food. 
2. The scales of the rootstocks coming from the nodes of the 
main rootstocks of ZL. virginica are broad, firm, and full of plant 
food, while the corresponding scales of the branches of L. oryzoides 
are reduced to mere dead fragments, containing no plant food. No 
good specimens of other species of Leersia were examined in ref- 
erence to their rootstocks. ; 
A considerable portion, if not all, the species of Muhlenbergia 
put forth flowering branches. In case of M. debilis Trin., some 
of the lower internodes from the surface to five or more centimetres 
above frequently branch at the nodes, where there are clusters of 
, Edited by Prof. Charles E. Bessey, Lincoln, Neb 
JA New York 
Per By ore the Botanical Club of the A. A. A. S, in New > 
