HITCHCOCK AND CHASE——TROPICAL NORTH AMERICAN PANICUM. 5038 
DESCRIPTION. 
Plants perennial with long branching decumbent base, rooting at the nodes; culms 
straggling, ascending, 2 to 3 meters long, slender, more or less compressed, smooth or 
hirsute or roughened below the nodes, producing long divaricate branches; sheaths 
papillose-hispid especially toward the summit, sometimes glabrate below, densely 
pubescent at the junction with the blade; ligule membranaceous-ciliate, about 0.5 
mm. long; blades flat, rather firm, usually horizontally spreading, 10 to 15 cm. long, 
1.2 to 2.5 em. wide (rarely larger), narrowed to the usually unsymmetrical base, 
gradually tapering from below the middle to an acumi- 
nate apex, scabrous and sometimes sparsely hispid on 
the upper surface, pubescent above the ligule, scab- 
erulous or puberulent beneath or sometimes sparsely 
hispid, especially along the midnerve, the fine white 
margin undulate, scabrous; panicle 10 to 15 cm. long, 
usually about as wide, the few slender scabrous branches 
remote, pilose in the axils, the lower branches solitary or Fig, 87.—P. schiffneri. From 
in pairs, widely spreading or reflexed, more than half as type specimen. 
long as the very scabrous main axis, naked at the base, 
the upper branches much shorter, ascending, the rather densely flowered short 
branchlets appressed along the upper half or two-thirds of the branches, the bract 
at the base of inflorescence usually well developed; spikelets short-pediceled, aggre- 
gated, scarcely 2 mm. long, 1 mm. wide, turgid, glabrous; first glume less than one- 
fourth as long as the spikelet; second glume and sterile lemma equal, exceeding the 
fruit, obscurely nerved; fruit about 1.5 mm. long, 0.9 mm. wide, elliptical, sparsely 
covered with long appressed silky hairs. 
This species resembles Panicum parviglume in habit and P. schmitzii and P. virgul- 
torum in spikelet characters. It has longer, more straggling culms than has any other 
species of this group, and larger blades than any except P. parviglume. 
DISTRIBUTION. 
Wet shady banks and slopes, Porto Rico, Windward Islands, and southern Mexico 
to southern Brazil. 
Veracruz: Cordoba, Amer. Gr. Nat. 
Herb. 66, distributed as P. par- 
viglume. 
GUATEMALA: Coban, Turckheim II. 
1326. 
Costa Rica: San Francisco de 
Guadalupe, Jiménez in 1910. 
Panama: El Boquete, Hitchcock 
8278, 8305. 
Porto Rico: Maricao, Chase 6198. 
Indiera Fria, Chase 6247. Vi- 
Fig. 88.—Distribution of P. schiffneri. cinity of Cayey, Chase 6745. 
Alto de Bandera, Chase 6474. 
Winpwarp Istanps: Martinique, Hahn 616. St. Vincent, Eggers 6653, Smith 
& Smith 1099 (K. U. Herb.). 
66. Panicum parviglume Hack. 
Panicum parviglume Hack. Oesterr. Bot. Zeitschr. 51: 429. 1901; Contr. U. 8. Nat. 
Herb. 15: 126. 1910. 
Panicum conchatum Fourn. Mex. Pl. 2: 25. 1886. This was previously included 
among the doubtful species.1 A few spikelets from Schaffner’s no. 204 (the type 
1Contr. U. 8. Nat. Herb. 15: 329. 1910. 
