PANICUM ATLANTICUM IL Sp.
Whole plant, with the exceptions noted below, papillose-pilose, with long white spreading hairs, the hairs on the upper surface of the leaves and on the summit of the calm scantier, those on the lower surface of the leaves shorter. Culms caespitose, at length branched, 3-5 dm. tall, erect or ascending, the nodes barbed with spreading hairs, a bare ring about i mm. long below each node ; sheaths shorter than the internodes; ligule a ring of hairs 2-5 mm. long; leaves erect, rigid, thickish, linear-lanceolate, 3-10 cm. long, 4-7 mm. wide, acuminate, rough on the margins, 7-I t-nerved, the middle leaves the longest; panicle broadly ovate to orbicular, 4-6.5 cm. long, 3-7 cm. wide, its main axis somewhat pilose at the base, the remaining portion, as well as the ascending somewhat flexuous branches and their divisions, hispidulous, the lower branches 2.5-4.5 cm. long ; spikelets many on hispidulous pedicels several times their length, obovate, about 2 mm. long, about 1.3 mm. broad, obtuse, the first scale about one-half as long as the spikelet, broadly ovate, acute, sparingly pubescent, 1-nerved, the second and third scales equal in length, membranous, orbicular when spread out, 9-nerved, densely pubescent with short spreading hairs, the third scale enclosing a hyaline palet about one-half its length, the fourth scale chartaceous, oval to almost orbicular, about 1.75 mm. long, enclosing a palet of equal length and similar tex
ture.
Type specimens collected by the writer on dry somewhat shaded knolls in the grounds of the New York Botanical Garden.
It has also been secured on Staten Island, New York, by Dr. N. L. Britton ; and also in southeastern Virginia, east of the Dismal Swamp and south of Great Bridge, by Dr. John K. Small.
This well-marked grass is related in habit and general appear ance to P. pubesecns Lam. and P. villosissiminn Nash, differing from the former in the larger spikelets and the longer hairs cloth ing the sheaths and leaves, and from the latter in the smaller and differently shaped spikelets and in the smaller panicles.