6 
flowers, the outer glumes coriaceous or rigid. The pistillate spikelets 
single and embedded in the joints of the thickened cartilaginous rachis, 
2-flowered, the upper flower fertile, the lower neutral; the outer empty 
elume thickened and cartilaginous, the inner much thinner and pointed ; 
the flowering glumes and palets thin and scarious. 
At maturity the rachis breaks up at the joints with the embedded 
spikelets. 
1. Tripsacum dactyloides Linn. (GaMaqrass), (Gray’s Manual, 6th ed., p. 636.) 
Culms tufted, 4 to 6 feet high, thick and stout ; leaves coarse, 1 to 2 feet long, 1 inch 
wide; spikes 2to 4 together at the apex, and sometimes lor 2 lateral ones, 4 to 8 
inches long, rigid, the lower one-fourth pistillate, the upper staminate; spikelets 4 
to 5 lines long, as long as or longer than the internodes.—In rich low ground, 
Connecticut to Missouri and southward to Florida and Texas. 
Var. MONOSTACHYUM (T. monostachyum Willd). Culms 1 to 24 feet high; cauline 
leaves short (5 to 8 inches), one-half inch wide, long-attenuated at upex; spike 
single, terminal, 4 to 6 inches long ; spikelets nearly as in T. dactyloides, the pistillate 
part consisting of about 8 joints.—Connecticut to Missouri and southward to Florida 
and Texas. G. C, Nealley in Texas (Ballinger County ?). 
2. T. Floridanum Porter in Herb. Culms 2 to4 feet high, slender, leaves 2 feet 
long, narrow and rigid; spike single, terminal, 6 to 10 inches long, stiffly erect, more 
slender than the preceding; spikelets smaller and more numerous, two-ranked, the 
pistillate part short.—Florida (4. P. Garber) and Texas (G. CU. Nealley). 
3. Lemmoni Vasey. Culms 4 to 5 feet high, less robust than in 7. dactyloides, the 
leaves longer, narrower, and more rigid, becoming somewhat involute, scabrous on the 
margins, otherwise smooth; spikelets terminal and lateral, the upper in clusters of 
5, the lateral in pairs or single, the male part 3 to 34 inches long, the female part 24 
to 3 inches; the malé part slender, the spikelets 3 lines long; the female part about 
2 lines wide, somewhat flattened or angular, of 12 to 15 joints, each about 2 lines long.— 
Huachuca Mountains, Arizona (J. G. Lemmon). 
This species is near T. fasciculatum ‘lrin., of Mexico, but is less robust, with much 
narrower leaves. That also has much laxer and longer male spikes, ita spikelets 2 
lines long; the female spikelets shorter. 
COIS Linn. 
Culm repeatedly branched, the branches ending in an inflorescence, 
which consists of (at the base) one or two globose ivory-like capsules 
with an orifice at the top from which projects a number of male spike- 
lets in pairs. The globose capsule with one or two sterile spikelets. 
The capsule is formed by a condensation of the sheath of the leaf at 
the base of the female inflorescence. 
The species C. lachryma is occasionally cultivated in this country, and 
is occasionally found escaped from eultivation. It is called Job’s tears, 
and is originally from China and India. 
ELIONURUS H. B. K. 
Spike cylindrical, rachis grooved, white-hairy, the sessile spikelet 
with one perfect flower, the pediceled one sterile. Glumes 4, all awn- 
less, the lower one usually the largest and thickest, keeled near the 
margin on each side, and with a row of balsam cells under each keel, 
second rather smaller and thinner, the third and fourth hyaline. Sta- 
meus 3. Styles distant, stigmas plumose. 
