BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 341 
spite of the fact that many of them had a very unpromising ap- 
pearance, a large proportion of the seeds germinated and grew 
freely, thus fully corroborating Mr. Pringle’s views and illustrating 
yet again the pestiferous character of the danthonia. 
I have an impression that Mr. Ford tried precisely similar and 
simultaneous experiments with the ordinary seeds of danthonia 
taken from the tops of his dried specimens of the grass, and that 
he found that they too germinated freely; but I am not perfectly 
sure as to this point, and I mention it merely as a supposition. It 
is only with regard to the cleistogamous seeds that I feel perfectly 
sure of the results as above stated. 
From Mr. Pringle’s figures and description it appears that the 
habit of cleistogamous flowering is possessed not only by D. spicata, 
but by the allied species Danthonia compressa, — which grass, as 
my colleague Mr. C. E. Faxon assures me, is a perfectly distinct 
species and not uncommon in the vicinity of the Bussey Institution. 
Professor Gray, in a note to the chapter on cleistogamy in his 
‘¢ Structural Botany,” New York, 1880, part I. p. 241, speaks of 
other cleistogamous grasses in the following terms: ‘* Amphicar- 
pum (Milium amphicarpon, Pursh) is the earliest recognized cleis- 
togamous grass, except perhaps Leersia oryzoides. Some species 
of Sporobolus are like the latter. and Mr. C. E. Pringle has recently 
detected such flowers concealed at the base of the sheathes of Dan- 
thonia [also in Vilfa and other grasses. Amer. Jour. Sci., 
1878 [3.], 15. 71].” As bearing upon this matter, it would be of 
interest to notice whether a ‘‘ strange and peculiar property of 
fowl-meadow grass,” mentioned as long ago as 1747 by the Rey- 
erend Jared Eliot in his ‘‘ Essays on Field Husbandry,” * may not 
perhaps depend upon the existence of cleistogamous spikelets in 
this grass also. According to Eliot, the fowl-meadow grass ‘* will 
hold out to be in season for cutting from the beginning of July till 
some time in October.” ‘‘ This fact I (he) wondered at, but view- 
ing some of the grass attentively I think I have found the reason 
of it. When it is grown about three feet high it then falls down, 
but doth not rot like other grass when lodged ; in a little time after 
ee fo 
it has thus fallen down at every joint it puts forth a new branch. 
Now to maintain this young brood of suckers there must be a plen- 
tiful course of sap conveyed up through the main stem or straw ; 
* The citation is from the reprinted essay in ‘‘ Papers for 1811, Communi- 
cated to the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture,” pp. 55, 73. 
