TRIANDRIA. DIGYNIA, 59 
art sod —_ scarcely contorted, and near half a 
tin length. ‘his specie: grows very commonly on 
the grassy plains of the Mid@iuci, as Pett as the 8. A a 
nica, and are very troublesome when in seed, adhering t 
the pungent stipe to every thing which comes in their 
way. 4. bicolor. (S. barbata, Micu ) Also in Brazil. 5. 
expansa. 6. stricta. 7.*parviflora.t There are now about 
18 species of this genus, of which 5 are European; there 
are 2 species at the Cape of Good Hope, 1 in Siberia, 3 in 
the warmer parts of America, (many more probably dis- 
covered by Humboldt and Bonpland), the rest exist in 
North America and Barbary; of these the §. juneea is 
~  eommon to this part of Africa, Europé, and North Ame- 
rica, the §. parvifora of Barbary also grows on the plains 
of the Missouri, and is probably the same plant as the S. 
aristella of Europe. 
Not a single species of this genus is useful in agri- 
‘culture. In Europe the species are thinly scattered, 
in Barbary and Upper Louisiana they appear in many 
_ places the prevailing herbage, communicating to the de- 
sert plains in autummthe colouring of harvest, called pay- 
Jonal by the American Spaniards. : 
87. SACCHARUM. L. (Sugar-Cane.) 
Flowers all hermaphrodite.—Calia with a 
long woolly involucrum at the base, 2-valved. 
+ This species is figured and described by Desfontaines in 
his Flora Atlantica, 1. p. 98. t. 29. as growing in Barbary. The 
Missouri plant appears, however,to bea distingt seen 
assuredly not a distinct species. i. 
‘Stem from 1 to 2. feet high, smooth. Leaves* smooth, . 
sheathing the stem and the panicle, filiformly jared, but 
not rigid. Panicle long, appecomts many-flowered: “Pedun- 
cles filitorm. Calix about one half longer than the corolla, 
Glumes compressed carinate, partly S-nerved, nearly equal, 
abruptly and capilliary acuminated, corolla somewhat villous, : 
sessile, or nearly without stipe, awn smooth, becoming capil- 
lary towards the extremity, somewhat flexuose, about an inch 
and a half long. 
Grows 0 ee with the other species on the plains of 
the Missouri. Diflers from the African plant in the ieaves not 
ing rigid, and the seeds villous, also by the capillary acumi-— 
Nation 'and compressien of the calix, and as well as the obtuse 
form of the seed. 
eee 
= i 9 ae 
