UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 

 BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY. 



TAXONOMIC AND RANGE INVESTIGATIONS. 



Washington, D. C. , October 19, 1911. 



Mr. Walter Deane, 



29 Brewster it. , 



G ambr i dg e , Mas s . 



Dear Sir: — 



Your package was received a few days ago. I am returning, 

 under frank, your mounted specimens with identification slips. 

 You found one comparatively rare one, Panicum subvillosum, at 

 Sherburne. It has larger spikelets, with longer first glume, 

 smaller panicles, with aseening lower branches, ascending pubes- 

 cence, shorter ligule, and more spreading habit than has P. hua- 

 chucae. Your Concord J.:.nieum, Bail T s Bill, Sept. 23, 1911, is 

 P. columbianum ocribn. (^The Festuca specimens I have examined and 

 compared with our United otates and European material. They fall 

 within the duriuscula circle better than anywhere else, The whole 

 ovina group is a complex, intcrgrading inextricably. Your plants 

 agree with some deterr ined by Hcckel as P. ovina duriuscula, ex- 

 cept that the leaves of yours are more conspicuously clustered 

 at the base. The European P. ovina v. glauea (Lam.) Hack, is 

 like yours in habit, but in our specimens of it the panicles as 

 well as foliage are glaucous. This, like duriuscula, has glabrous 

 lemmas. The var. glauca is not known to grow in America j but I 



