280 



Variety major var. nov. Culms 2 to 3 foet high, rather slender; leaves longer 

 than ill the typo, scabrous; spikes 4 to 9 inches long, erect, rather dense, but 

 often slender; glumes niucronate or sliort-awned. 



Type specimen collected in Oregon by W. C. Cusick in 1884 (No. 1134). Other 

 epecimens have been collected in the Kocky Mountains at lower altitudes than 

 the species; also in the White Mountains and on the high plains of the West, 

 and of British Columbia. Some specimens soom to run into A.caninum{L.)R. &S. 

 Most of these plants look very ditfereut from the type; some have been distrib- 

 uted as A. camnuvi (L.) R. & S. and some a8 A. tenerum Vasey. 

 Elymus ambiguus Vasey &, Scribn. sp.nov. Culms densely tufted, rigid, erect, 

 leafy, about 3 feet high; loaves of radical tufts 1 to 1-J- feet long, narrow and in- 

 volute; leaves of the culm about 4, erect, rigid, 6 to 10 inches long; sheaths long, 

 lignle very short; spikes 3 to 5 inches long, erect, rather densely flowered, rachia 

 scabrous, usually with 2 spikelets at each joint, sometimes with single ones at 

 the top and bottom of the spike; spikelets mostly twice as long as the joints of 

 the rachis, 5- to 9-Howered, 6 to 9 lines long; empty glumes aristiform, about J 

 line wide at the base, rigid, about 6 lines long, scabrous ; floral glumes 5 to 6 lines 

 long, terminating in 2 email, une(iual teeth and a stiff awn 1 to 2 lines long, ob- 

 scurely 5-nerved, puberulent or scabrous above; palet as long as its glume, 

 bidentate at the apex; grain about 3^ lines long. 



Type specimen collected by George Vasey at Pen Gulch, Colorado, in 1884. 

 Other specimens have been collected at Fort Garland and Empire City, Colorado, 

 and in Montana. 

 ElymuB glaucus tenuis var. nov. (E. siimcus Tburb. in Wats. Bot. Cal. ii. 326, non 

 L. ; E. Americarma Vasey & Scribn, in herb.) Culms 1^ to 3 feet high, rather 

 Blender; leaves usually narrow, 1 to 3 lines wide, 4 to 6 inches long, smooth or 

 pubescent; spikes 3 to 6 inches long, narro\\, with about 2 or sometimes but 1 

 Bpikelet at each joint; spikelets about 3-llowered, slightly exceeding the inter- 

 nodes, appreased ; empty glumes narrowly lance-ovate, about 4 lines long, acumi- 

 nate, 3-nerved ; floral glumes 4 to 5 lines long, obscurely nerved, often purple, 

 ■with a slender, divergent awn as long as the glume. 



Type specimen collected by John Macoun on Vancouver Island in 1887 (No. 

 3) ; other specimens collected from British Columbia to Lower California and 

 eastward to Arizona and Utah. Chiefly distinguished from the type by its nar- 

 rower leaves and its weaker and fewer-flowered spikes. E. sibirioua L., to which 

 Dr. Thurber referred our plant, is larger, with a more lax, bending spike, having 

 larger spikelets and muoh more diverging and longer awnt. 



