HITCHCOCK AND CHASE—GRASSES OF THE WEST INDIES. 319 
toward the summit; blades flat, 30 to 60 cm. long, commonly 2 cm. wide, the 
margins very scabrous; racemes 10 to 12 cm. long, numerous, aggregated in a 
fan-shaped panicle; spikelets 4 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, acuminate. 
Stream panks and swamps, southern Mexico, Trinidad (St. Joseph), and 
Tobago to South America. Originally described from Brazil. 
52. Paspalum virgatum L, Syst. Nat. ed. 10. 2: 855. 1759, 
Paspalum leucocheilum Wright, Anal. Acad. Cienc. Habana 8: 203, 1871. 
Paspalum virgatum var. jacquinianum Fliigge, Monogr. Pasp. 190. 1810. 
A robust perennial growing in large clumps, the erect culms commonly 2 
meters tall, the lower sheaths nodulose in drying; blades commonly 50 cm. or 
more long, 1 to 2 cm. wide, flat, the margins very scabrous; racemes several to 
many, 5 to 12 em. long, forming a panicle 20 to 40 cm. long, a tuft of long hairs 
in the axils, the dull purplish rachises often sparsely ciliate with long hairs; 
spikelets in pairs, crowded, grayish, becoming rusty brown at maturity, obovate, 
3 mm. long, 2 mm. wide, silky-hairy around the margin of the glume and the 
summit of the sterile lemma. In Porto Rico this and other species of this 
group are called “ cortedero ” because of the cruel cutting edges of the blades. 
Banks and slopes, mostly moist and swampy ground, Mexico and the West 
Indies to Argentina. Originally described from Jamaica. Paspalum leuco- 
cheilum was described from the Isle of Pines; P. virgatum var. jacquinianum 
from Caribbean islands. Throughout Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Santo Domingo, 
Porto Rico, Trinidad, and Tobago, and represented by specimens from Dominica, 
Martinique, St. Lucia, Grenada, and Barbados. Called “ caguazo” in Cuba. 
53. Paspalum secans sp. nov. 
Perennial, glabrous, in large clumps, with numerous long-leaved sterile 
shoots, the strong erect simple culms commonly 1 to nearly 2 meters tall; 
sheaths mostly overlapping, commonly separating from the culm and becoming 
involute above, ciliate at the summit, the lower rather loose and papery; 
ligule about 1.5 mm. long, membranaceous, with a dense row of white hairs be- 
hind it; blades erect, as much as 1 meter long, firm, 5 to 10 mm. wide, taper- 
ing to a base narrower than the summit of the sheath, long-acuminate, flat but 
drying more or less involute, the margins very sharply serrulate; racemes 5 to 
12 (rarely as many as 20), relatively slender, sometimes flexuous, spreading, 
6 to 15 mm. long, pilose at the base, rather remote, the panicle loose and open; 
spikelets glabrous, mostly pale, in pairs, not so crowded as in P. virgatum, 
glabrous, 2.3 to 2.7 mm. long, 1.5 to 16 mm. wide, obovate-elliptic; fruit about 
2.3 mm. long, pale, minutely roughened. 
Type in the U. 8. National Herbarium, no. 732740, collected on Monte Mesa, 
Porto Rico, October 17, 1918, by Agnes Chase (no. 6174). The name refers to 
the sharp-cutting leaf blades. 
Open slopes and dryish savannas, affecting drier situations than the other 
allies of P. virgatum. 
Most of the Cuba and Jamaica specimens are somewhat more robust, with 
racemes on the average more numerous (12 to 15), the spikelets slightly wider. 
This Jamaican form, together with a yellow-panicled form of P, virgatum, Grise- 
bach? described as P. virgatum var. stramineum, differentiating it by “ axis half 
as broad as the spikelets; glumes straw-colored or at length purplish-tawny, 
usually glabrous,” and citing March, Jamaica, and Wullschlaegel, Antigua, and 
also referring to Trinius, Icones, plate 1381. The March specimen in the Grise- 
bach Herbarium is the form with glabrous spikelets and pale fruit, the Wull- 
schlaegel specimen is P. virgatum. Trinius’s plate 131 shows pubescent spike- 
*FL Brit. W. Ind. 543. 1864, 
47877°—_17—_5 
