ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 103 



4. Melica aristata Thurh. 



Root perennial ; fibres smooth or tomeutose. Culms cfespitose, 2 to 3i.^ feet 

 high, leafy, erect, terete, canaliculate. Sheaths strongly pubescent or smooth, 

 the lower longer than their internodes. Ligules exserted. Leaves 3 to 4 inches 

 long, 2 to 3 sixteenths of an inch wide, lanceolate, strongly pubescent, or smooth 

 (the smooth ones retrorsely scabrous). Panicle very simple, 5 to 8 inches long, 

 erect, contracted, interrupted ; the lower rather distant series of branchlets in 

 twos or threes, upper single. Branchlets unequal, short, (two single flowered, 

 the other few flowered) appressed, (but spreading while flowering), angular, sca- 

 brous. Spikelet-, .t to 6 eighths of an inch long, oblong, 4 to 5 flowered, upper- 

 most abortive. Plumes unequal, oblong, obtuse, scabrous, scarious margined ; 

 lower three, upper distinctly 5 nerved, (all save the central evanescent). Palets 

 unequal ; lower oblong, scabrous, emarginate, scarious margined, 7-nerved, the 

 central one of which is prolonged into a scabrous, erect awn, about the length 

 of the palet ; upper oblong, refuse, ciliate at the apex. Stamens three. 



(Number 4,861, Catalogue, 1867.) Loose soil in open woods near Clark's, 

 4,000 feet altitude, 1866. In a similar habitat, Yosemite Valley, June, 1866. 

 In loose soil along the Central Pacific Railroad, from Shady Canon to<the 

 Summit, July, 1869. Shady Hillsides, on the road from Bear Yaliey to Eureka 

 South, (5,000 feet alt.) July, 1869. 



In the two last-named localities, the spikelets were frequently tinged with a 

 dark purple. Dr. Hillebrand, of Honolulu, also collected this grass in 1864, 

 on the higher Sierras. 



5. Melica Geyeri Munro. 



This species is No. 40 of my small collection, and No. 6,119 of the Catalogue, 

 1867, there enumerated as M. poa;oities var bromoides Bol. 



Col. Munro, to whom specimens were sent, makes the following remarks on 

 this species : " Mr. Bolander may be right in considering this to be a variety 

 of M. poa^oides, but I think they are all distinct. In this the glumes are shorter 

 than the flower and the terminal flower is acute. In M. poa?oides the glumes 

 are nearly as long as the whole flower and the terminal flower is very obtuse. 

 I should call this M. Geyeri Munro = Melica bulbosa Geyer, Ms." 



Root perennial, tuberous, tunicat-ed ; fibres villous. Culms 2 to 5 feet high, 

 tufted or single, terete, striate and smooth. Sheaths scabrous. Ligules short, 

 entire or lacerated. Panicle from 4 to 8 inches long, rather simple and loosely 

 spreading ; branchlets 1 to 5, very unequal, in the lowest series generally fewer 

 and shorter. ,> Leaves }{ of an inch wide, long, slender, scabrous. Spikelets 

 loosely 5 to 7 flowered (4 to 7 eighths of an inch long), uppermost abortive, 

 tinged with purple. Anthers three, ig of an inch long. 



This tall tufted grass has very much the hat)it of a Bromus. It develops 

 most beautifully in loose soil, in the open woods and park-lands of the Russian 

 River Valley, where it forms large tufts and attains a height of 5-6 feet. April, 

 1864. Common on the Coast Ranges. 



It has been asserted that clavate or bulbous roots of grasses were owing to 

 a hard compact soil. This assertion does not hold good in California, for our 



