PASPALUM BIFIDU? (A. Bertol.) Panicum Floridanum Trin. Mein. Acad. St. Petersb. (VI.) 3: Pt. 2, 248. 1834. Not Paspalum Floridaimm Mx. 1803.
Panicum In:ficium A. Bertol. in Mem. Acad. Sci. Bolog. 2: 598. pl. 41. f. 2, e-11. 1850.
Panicum Alabamcnse Trin.; Steud. Syn. Pl. Gram. 64. 1855.
Paspalum raccmulosum Nutt.; Chapin. FL S. St. 571. 1860.
Paspalum intcrmptum Wood, Classbook, 783. 1861.
The above seems to be the oldest available name for this plant, the Panicum Floridanum of Trinius being excluded by the Paspalum of the same name previously published by Michaux. The excellent plate and description of Bertoloni, and the fact that his plant was from Alabama, leaves little to be desired in its iden tification. I have been unable to ascertain where Dr. Chapman secured the name of P. racemulosum Nutt. The publication by Nuttall of such a name I have failed to discover up to the present. The only name resembling that accredited to Nuttall by Chapman is P. racemosum, published by the former in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society ((II.) 5: 145. 1837), but this is antedated by that of Lamarck. Nuttall secured his plant in southeastern Indian Territory, and just what he had I am as yet unable to determine. From a comparison of our plant with his description, I think it will become apparent at once that what ever plant he did have, it was some other than that which has been known for so long as Paspalum incemulostt in Nutt. The racemes in his species are described as " brevibus " and the rachis as "pilosis," neither of which characters are to be found in our plant, which has the racemes exceptionally long for this genus. " Clavellate receptacle of the flowers pilose " and " calix villous" are surely not descriptive of these parts in this grass, the spikelets of which are very glabrous and the pedicels only puberulent.
There is in the herbarium of Columbia University a specimen ticketed as follows: Panicum Alabamense' Trin. in lit. i1. Jul.
1832. Alabama, Dr. H. Gates, 1831." This is apparently in Dr. Torrey's hand writing, and is pretty clear evidence as to the plant of Trinius published by Steudel. I can discover no essential dif ferences between it and Paspalum bifirium. The leaves are some what broader and the racemes more numerous, but the habit, character of the spikelets, racemes and pubescence, and its distri bution are the same. Other specimens from the Gulf States are similar to the one labeled as above.
Judging from the description given by Prof. Real in Grasses of North America (2: 87, f 896), I take the P. racenioslim of that work, which he has accredited to Lamarck, to be this plant. I am at a loss to understand, if the description has been seen by him, why he should adopt this name, as a mere casual comparison of La marck's description with our plant would show the error of such a decision. The P. racemosum Lam., was originally published in his Illustrations (I : 176), but a much more extended description, in which a reference is made to the first publication, is given in the Encyclopedia Methodique (5 : 32), where it is stated that the plant is remarkable for its branching culms, and, further, that the inflo rescence is composed of a large number of short spikes, 40-50, and that the rachis is flat. He also remarks that his plant came originally from Peru. This would hardly describe the grass which I think Prof. Real had in mind, in which the culms are never branching but always simple, the racemes unusually long for this genus and erect, and the rachis somewhat triquetrous and narrow but not flat. Moreover, one would hardly expect to find native in the southern Atlantic and Gulf States a plant which is indigenous to Peru.