Part 205 (1/2)

Flowers all perfect; flowering glume bifid, short-awned between the teeth. Otherwise as Phragmites. (The Latin name of the species.)

A. DNAX, L. Very tall (10--18); spikelets 3--4-flowered.--Closely resembling Phragmites communis. Cultivated for ornament, and naturalized in Bedford Co., Va. (_A. H. Curtiss._) (Nat. from Eu.)

54. MuNROA, Torr. (Pl. 16.)

Spikelets usually 3-flowered, few (2--4) and nearly sessile in the axils of floral leaves; flowers perfect, or the uppermost abortive. Empty glumes lanceolate, acute, hyaline and 1-nerved; flowering glumes larger, 3-nerved, rather rigid, the mid-nerve stout, excurrent, the lateral ones scarcely so.--Low or prostrate many-stemmed annuals, fasciculately branched, with crowded short flat rigid or pungent leaves, the short sheaths strongly striate. (Named for the English agrostologist, Maj.-Gen. _William Munro_.)

1. M. squarrsa, Torr. Glaucous, somewhat p.u.b.escent and villous at the nodes or glabrous; leaves 3--12” long.--Dry plains, central Kan. to Dak., west to Mont., Utah, and New Mex.

55. KLeRIA, Pers. (Pl. 10.)

Spikelets 3--7-flowered, crowded in a dense and narrow spike-like panicle. Glumes membranaceous, compressed-keeled, obscurely 3-nerved, barely acute, or the flowering glume often mucronate or bristle-pointed; the empty ones moderately unequal, nearly as long as the spikelet.

Stamens 3. Grain free.--Tufted with simple upright culms, the sheaths often downy; allied to Dactylis and Poa. (Named for Prof. _G. L.

Koeler_, an early writer on Gra.s.ses.)

1. K. cristata, Pers. Culms 1--2 high; leaves flat, the lower sparingly hairy or ciliate; panicle narrowly spiked, interrupted or lobed at base; spikelets 2--4-flowered; flowering glume acute or mucronate.--Var.

GRaCILIS, Gray, with a long and narrow spike, the flowers usually barely acute.--Dry hills, Penn. to Ill. and Kan., thence north and westward.

(Eu.)

56. EATNIA, Raf. (Pl. 10.)

Spikelets usually 2-flowered, with an abortive rudiment or pedicel, numerous, in a contracted or slender panicle, very smooth. Empty glumes somewhat equal in length, but very dissimilar, a little shorter than the flowers; the lower narrowly linear, keeled, 1-nerved; the upper broadly obovate, folded round the flowers, 3-nerved on the back, not keeled, scarious-margined. Flowering glume oblong, obtuse, compressed-boat-shaped, naked, chartaceous; the palet very thin and hyaline. Stamens 3. Grain linear-oblong, not grooved.--Perennial, tall and slender gra.s.ses, with simple tufted culms, and often spa.r.s.ely downy sheaths, flat lower leaves, and small greenish (rarely purplish) spikelets. (Named for Prof. _Amos Eaton_, author of a popular Manual of the Botany of the United States, which was for a long time the only general work available for students in this country, and of other popular treatises.)

[*] _Upper empty glume rounded-obovate and very obtuse; panicle usually dense._

1. E. obtusata, Gray. (Pl. 10.) Panicle dense and contracted, somewhat interrupted, rarely slender; the spikelets crowded on the short erect branches; upper glume rough on the back; flowers lance-oblong.--Dry soil, N. Penn. to Fla., Mich., and far westward. June, July.

[*][*] _Glume narrower, sometimes acutish; panicle more loose and slender._

2. E. Pennsylvanica, Gray. Leaves mostly 3--6' long; panicle long and slender, loose, the racemose branches lax and somewhat elongated; glumes thin and broadly scarious, the lowest half the length of the flower, very narrow, the upper obtuse or bluntly somewhat pointed; the 2 (rarely 3) flowers lanceolate, with pointed glumes.--Varies, with a fuller panicle, 6--8' long, with the aspect of Cinna (var. MaJOR, _Torr._); and, rarely, with the lower palet minutely mucronate-pointed!--Moist woods and meadows; common.

3. E. Dudleyi, Vasey. Culms very slender; leaves shorter, 1--2' long; panicle very slender, the branches few, short and mostly appressed; empty glumes nearly equal, the lower oblong, the upper broadly elliptical, apiculate; flowering glumes shorter than in n. 2, acutish.--Long Island to central N. Y., south to S. C.

57. ERAGRoSTIS, Beauv. (Pl. 10.)

Spikelets 2--70-flowered, nearly as in Poa, except that the flowering glume is but 3- (rarely 1-) nerved, not webby-haired at the base, and is deciduous; palet persistent on the rhachis after the rest of the flower has fallen.--Culms often branching. Leaves linear, frequently involute, and the ligule or throat of the sheath bearded with long villous hairs.

Panicle various. (Name from ??, _spring_, and ????st??, _a gra.s.s_.)

[*] _Prostrate and creeping, much branched; root annual; spikelets flat, imperfectly dicious, cl.u.s.tered, almost sessile, in the more fertile plant almost capitate._

1. E. reptans, Nees. Spikelets linear-lanceolate, 10--30-flowered; flowers lance-ovate, acute; leaves short, almost awl-shaped.--Gravelly river-borders; common. Aug.--Flowering branches 2--5' high.

[*][*] _Diffusely spreading, or the flowering culms ascending, low (6--15' high), annual; spikelets often large, flat, forming a narrow crowded panicle._

E. MNOR, Host. Sheaths often hairy; leaves flat, smooth; spikelets short-pedicelled, lance- or oblong-linear, 8--20-flowered, lead-colored (2--5” long); flowers ovate, obtuse, the lateral nerves becoming evident, and keel smooth. (E. poaeoides, _Beauv._)--Sandy waste places, eastward; rare. (Nat. from Eu.)

E. MaJOR, Host. Sheaths mostly glabrous; spikelets larger (3--10”