Circular No. 30. - (Agros. 79.) Issued March 8, 1901. 



United States Department of Agriciiltupe> 



DIVISION OF AGROSTOLOG^<^*'^V»* * ^ ^'^ 

 [Grass and Forage Plant Investigations^*^ ». "* ^ VO r^lT 



NEW OR LITTLE KNOWN (aiASSES. 



The following descriptions are of new or little known species of 

 grasses which have appeared in recent collections from several 

 sources and their publication as a circular of this Division is recom- 

 mended. The notes on Danthonia intermedia are by the late 

 Prof. Thomas A. Williams, and were made just before his death. 



Setariopsis latiglumis (Vasey) Scribn. Field Columb. Mus. Bot. Ser. 1:289. 

 PI. XI. December, 1896 [Setaria latiglumis Vasey, Bui. Torr. Bot. Club, 

 13:229. 1896). 



Culms 1 m. high; nodes bearded with erect, appressed hairs; sheaths, at least 

 the lower ones, papillate-pilose, long-hairy at the throat ; leaves thinly hairy 

 or pilose on the upper surface, the lower ones pilose on the back, at least 

 towards the base which is long dentate; the broader leaves 1.5 to nearly 2 

 cm. wide, long-acuminate-pointed and gradually tapering to a very narrow 

 base. Panicle about 30 cm. long, rather densely flowered ; branches erect, 

 appressed, the lower ones 4-5 cm. long. 



This description is drawn from No. 8412. C. G. Pringle, 1900, collected in Iguala, 

 Guerrero, Mexico. Pringle's specimens are much more robust and coarser 

 than the type, No. 117a, E. Palmer, 1885. In Palmer's plants the leaves are 

 5-10 mm. wide, and the comparatively few flowered panicles 6-10 cm. long. 

 The spikelets, however, in Palmer's plant are somewhat larger than those 

 in the specimens above described. There is such a close resemblance, how- 

 ever, in the character of the essential parts that I must regard them as rep- 

 resenting a single species. 



ICHNANTHUS APICULATUS Scribn. sp. nov. 



A slender, wiry, ascending perennial, more or less extensively creeping and root- 

 ing at the lower joints, with flat, lanceolate, acute leaves 3-8 cm. long, and 

 loosely flowered, spreading panicle 14-20 cm. long, the base partially included 

 or barely exserted from the uppermost leaf sheath. Culms striate, glabrous 

 or with a pubescent line along one side ; nodes finely and shortly pubescent ; 

 sheaths striate, ciliate along the margin, papillate-pilose towards the apex 

 and pubescent at the summit on the back, where it is somewhat contracted ; 

 ligule very short, the margin shortly and finely ciliate; leaf blade 4-8 mm. 

 wide, rounded at the base and gradually tapering from near the middle to 

 the very shai-ply acute apex, sparingly papillate-pilose on both surfaces or 

 nearly glabrous, margins minutely and sharply scabrous and with a few long 

 hairs near the base; lower panicle branches ascending, 8-12 cm. long, the 

 upper branches more spreading, gradually becoming shorter. Spikelets on 

 rather slender pedicels, often in pairs— one short pedicellate, the other sup- 

 ported on a longer pedicel — oblong-ovate in outline, 3-3.5 mm. long, about 

 0.5 mm. broad, obtuse. Outer glumes prominently nerved, glabrous — the 

 first, 3-nerved, obtuse, two-thirds to three-fourths as long as the spikelet; 



