GRASS FAMILY 



181 



2, Leptochloa fascicularis (Lam.) 



A. Gray. 



Loose-flowered Sprangle-top. Clustered 



Salt-grass. Fig. 411. 



Festuca fascicularis Lam. Tabl. Encycl. 1: 189. 1791. 

 Leptochloa fascicularis A. Gray, Man. 588. 1848. 



Culms erect or spreading, 30-60 cm. tall ; 



sheaths smooth ; blades erect, as long or longer 



than the culms ; spikes numerous. 7-12 cm. 



long; spikelets short-pediceled, 7-ll-flo\vered, 



the florets much longer than the lanceolate 



glumes ; lemmas hairy-margined toward the 



base, short-awned from the toothed apex. 



Ditches and moist, especially alkaline places, Mary- 

 land to Florida and the West Indies, west to the 

 Great Basin, rare in California; Fresno County 

 (Griffiths), Kern County (Raymond). June-Aug. Tyi)e 

 locality: tropical America. 



3. Leptochloa uninervia (Presl.) 



Hitchc. & Chase. 



Dense-flowered Sprangle-top. Fig. 412. 



Megastachva uninervia Presl, Rel. Haenk. 1: 283. 1830. 

 Leptochloa imbricata Thurb. in S. Wats. Bot. Calif. 2: 293. 



1880. 

 Leptochloa uninervia Hitchc. & Chase, Contr. U. S. Xat. 



Herb. 18: 383. 1917. 



Resembles L. fascicularis; usually strictly erect, 

 the panicle more oblong in outline, with shorter 

 denser flowered spikes ; glumes broader and more 

 obtuse ; lemmas apiculate but not awned. 



Ditches and moist places, San Bernardino Mountains, 

 southward to Mexico and east to Louisiana. May-Oct. Type 

 locality: Mexico. 



49 MONANTHOCHLOE Engelm. Trans. Acad. St. Louis 1 : 436. 1859. 



Plants dioecious ; spikelets 3-5-flowered, the uppermost rudimentary, the rachilla dis- 

 articulating tardily in the pistillate spikelets; glumes wanting; lemmas rounded on the 

 back, convolute, narrowed above, 3-nerved. membranaceous ; palea narrow. 2-nerved. in the 

 pistillate spikelets convolute around the pistil, the rudimentary uppermost floret inclosed 

 between the keels of the next floret below. A spreading wiry perennial, with clustered short 

 subulate leaves, the spikelets at the ends of the short branches only a little longer than the 

 leaves. [Greek, one-flowered grass.] 



Species 1, muddy shores of the ocean in tropical and subtropical America. Type species, Monanthochloe 

 littoralis Engelm. 



1. Monanthochloe littoralis Engelm. 

 Salt Cedar. Fig. 413. 



Monanthochloe littoralis Engelm. Trans. Acad. St. Louis 1: 

 437. pi. 13, 14. 1859. 



A low. extensively creeping stoloniferous perennial 

 with wiry culms and rigid crowded leaves, the blades 

 5-10 cm. long, squarrose ; spikelets almost hidden 

 among the upper leaves. 



Salt marshes and mucky or gravelly tidal flats along the 

 coast of tropical seas in the western hemisphere, extending 

 as far north on the Pacific Coast as Santa Barbara. May- 

 June. Type locality: Texas. 



