4. Pumilum var. nov. Cespitose; stems in a dense cluster, 6 to 15 inches tall, 8 to 16 angled, ½ to 1 line in diameter, mostly geniculate at the lower nodes, nearly all the joints tumid, the lower gibbous; ridges with cross-bands of silex, grooves naked; sheaths tight, often symmetrical through the tumidity of the node, narrowest in the middle except where nodes are normal, bearing a broad black band below and a narrower black limb, the two separated by a pinkish or dirty white band which is often suffused with black or even entirely black towards the top of the stem, fading to dirty ashy the second year, ultimately splitting, recurving and falling off in patches; leaves linear, erect, prominently 3-angled, the central one sometimes grooved on the smallest stems and branches; teeth persistent, dark brown, somewhat flexuous, white-bordered for 1-5 to 1-4 their height.
Found at intervals for a mile along the railroad grade at North Hampton, N. H. At the foot of the grade, in moist soil near a brook, probably from the same source as this, a form of affine grows, but the joints are often tumid and occasionally geniculate, the branches when present like stems of this, tumid jointed, often so gibbous as to rupture the sheath. Peculiar for its small cespitose stems, dark sheaths and especially the tumid or gibbous nodes, which make the stems thickest there, while usually the nodes are contracted.
This is near the European variety viride Milde, but differs in having bands on the ridges, no rosulæ in the grooves, and in the tumid joints.
5. Suksdorfi var. nov. Stems 1 to 2½ feet high, 1 to 3 lines wide, about 24 angled, rough, with cross-walls of silex, rarely with ends elevated to two rows of tubercles; stomata in single rows, rarely double for a short distance, each stoma connected at top and bottom with its opposite by rows of rosulæ formed by the silex bands of the grooves throwing up tubercles on each cell of the epidermis, which open at top to circular jagged disks, these often obscured later by a washing of silex, but always shown near the tops of the stems and on the branches; sheaths elongated, cylindrical, tight, black, developing a ring of tawny white which gradually increases till it occupies the whole sheath except a narrow black basal ring and a narrow black limb formed by the horny tips of the leaves; leaves linear, narrowed above the middle, the lower 2-3 keeled, the upper third flat, rarely with a narrow carinal groove above, tipped with a small, black, horny, hyaline-bordered point; teeth articulated to the leaves, black-centered, soon fading, withering and deciduous.
Anatomy of hiemale, the carinal bast elongated along the dissepiment, the vallecular much smaller but often similar in shape. Upper 1 to 3 nodes bearing 1 to 4 branches each, which overtop the stem and bear contemporaneous spikelets.
This would be a noteworthy variety even if it bore no branches. It is the only American form of heimale known to me, except occasionally intermedium which bears branches with the first effort of growth. All the others develop them, if at all, after the stem has ceased to grow, and the vegetative energy, having no other outlet, pushes out a few of the latent buds lying between the ridges at the nodes.
Bingen, Wash. High bottom land on the Columbia river. W. N. Suksdorf, September 3, 1902, No. 2161.
6. Drummondi (Milde) C. robustum Drummondi Milde, Mon. Equis. 593. Fertile stems 3 feet high, 16 angled; sheaths short, the lowest fuscous; teeth persistent, white, crispate; stomata often of 1 to 3 lines to a series, which are separated by 4 to 6 cells.
Collected by Drummond at the Brazos river in Texas. It is very aberrant, but is placed here on account of its anatomy. I have not seen specimens of this.
7. Affine (Eng.) (E. robustum affine Eng.) E. hiemale of American authors, not L. Stems 18 to 30 inches high, 2 to 5 lines in diameter, finely 16 to 40 angled, dark green, angles with broad bands of silex, rarely with two rows of tubercles. Internodes when dry contracted above and below, widest in the middle as in hiemale, scurfy when young; sheaths longer than broad, at first with a black limb, developing a broad ashy band and narrow black basal ring, fading, rupturing and deciduous the second or third year; leaves narrowly linear, sharply 3 angled, the central ridges only rarely centrally grooved except on the branches, where they usually are; commissural groove very narrow, not widened upward; teeth articulated to the sheaths, persistent or usually cohering by their tips and torn off by the growth of the stem, those of each sheath shaped like a candle extinguisher, all telescoped together and borne up on the tip of the stem.