\ 
I 
L 
BULLETIN 
OF THE 
TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB. 
Vol. XM New York, April, 1884. [No. 4 
A new Species of Grass. 
By Geo. Vasey. 
(Plate XLV.) 
In 1830 Presl published in the first volume of Reliquiae Haenk- 
enice a description and figure of a Mexican grass which he called 
Cathestechum prostratum, which has not been since collected, and 
which is doubtfully admitted by Bentham and Hooker in the Genera 
Plantarum. In the herbarium of the Department of Agriculture are 
specimens of a grass collected by Dr. E. Palmer in Sonora, Mexico, 
in 1869, which has, until recently, remained undetermined. In 1882, 
however, I received from Dr. Havard specimens of the same grass 
collected at Presidio, Western Texas, and again in 1883 specimens 
collected in Presidio County. These specimens I finally concluded 
to be the long lost Cathestechum and sent specimens of them to Prof. 
E. Hackel of St. Poelten, Austria, who compared them with the 
original specimens of Presl in the Herbarium at Vienna, and decided 
that although they were of the same genus they were a different 
species, for which he proposed the name of C. erectum, Vasey and 
Hackel, and pointed out the difTerences between the two. Mr. 
Scribner ascertained that the same grass was collected on the Mexi- 
can Boundary Survey. As I am not yet prepared to separate the 
generic and specific characters, I give the full description as follows: 1/ 
Cathestechum erectum, Vasey and Hackel. — Culms tufted, 
erect, 6 to 9 inches high, throwing out from the base long arched run- 
ners, of 2 or 3 joints, the joints villous and bearing a tuft of short 
leaves. The leaves are mostly at the base 2 to 3 inches long, narrow, 
plane or becoming somewhat involute, sparsely hairy on the margins, 
striate. Culm-leaves 2 or 3, distant, i to 2 inches long; ligule a 
ciliate ring. 
Some of the culms are simple, and others develop at the upper 
sheath 2 to 4 lateral peduncles, each 2 to 4 inches long, forming a 
Kind of cymose cluster. Each of these peduncles, as well as the main 
stem or rhachis, bears a raceme, about one inch long, of from 5 to 9 
approximate, sessile fascicles of flowers. Each fascicle consists of 
three (rarely 4) spikelets. The lateral spikelets of each fascicle are 
2-flowered, the middle spikelet usually 3-flowered, frequently with a 
fourth imperfect flower. Sometimes also the lateral spikelets have a 
sterile pedicel or an imperfect flower. The outer glumes are colored 
and very unequal; the lower one is minute (one-half line long), 
broadly cuneate, truncate or somewhat toothed at the apex; the upper 
?ne is lanceolate, compressed, somewhat keeled, i -nerved, acute, or 
»n the central spikelet 2-toothed and mucronate, i to 1.5 line long, 
villous externally. The flowering-glumes are oblong, about 1.5 line 
