MANUAL OF THE GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES 355 



Figure 729.— Distribution of 

 Phleum alpinum. 



mountain meadows, in bogs and wet places, Greenland to Alaska, 

 south in the mountains of Maine and New Hampshire; northern 

 Michigan; in the mountains of the Western States to New Mexico and 

 California, also on the seacoast at Fort Bragg, Calif., and northward 

 (fig. 729); Eurasia and Arctic and alpine regions of the Southern 

 Hemisphere. 



Phleum arenarium L. Annual; culms tufted, 5 to 30 cm tall; foli- 

 age scant, mostly basal, the blades 2 to 4 cm long; panicle 1 to 3 cm 

 long, somewhat tapering at each end; glumes acuminate, strongly 

 ciliate on the keel, o — Ballast near Portland, Oreg.; coast of 

 Europe and North Africa. 



Phleum subulatum (Savi) Aschers. and Graebn. Annual; culms 10 

 to 20 cm tall; blades 2 to 5 cm long; panicle linear-oblong, mostly 

 3 to 8 cm long, 4 to 5 mm thick ; glumes 2 mm 

 long, scaberulous, subacute, the tips approach- 

 ing. © — Ballast, Philadelphia, Pa., and 

 near Portland, Oreg.; Mediterranean region. 



Phleum paniculatum Huds. Annual; culms 

 10 to 30 cm tall; foliage scabrous; panicle cylin- 

 diic, 2 to 5 cm long, 3 to 6 mm thick; glumes 

 2 mm long, glabrous, hard, widened upward to a 

 truncate swollen summit, with a hard awn-point 

 at the tip. © — Ballast near Portland, Oreg. ; Mediterranean region. 



73. GASTRiDIUM Beauv. 



Spikelets 1-flowered, the rachilla disarticulating above the glumes, 

 prolonged behind the palea as a minute bristle; glumes narrow, un- 

 equal, somewhat swollen at the base; lemma much shorter than the 

 glumes, hyaline, broad, truncate, awned or awnless; palea about as 

 long as the lemma. Annual with flat blades and pale, shining, spike- 

 like panicles. Type species, Milium lendigerum L. (G. ventricosum) . 

 Name from Greek gastridion, a small pouch, alluding to the slightly 

 saccate glumes. 



1. Gastridium ventricosum (Gouan) Schinz and Thell. Nit- 

 grass. (Fig. 730.) Culms 20 to 40 cm tall; foliage scant, blades 

 scabrous; panicle 5 to 8 cm long, dense, spikelike; spikelets slender, 

 about 5 mm long; glumes tapering into a long point, the second about 

 one fourth shorter than the first; floret minute, plump, pubescent, the 

 delicate awn 5 mm long, somewhat geniculate, o - — Open ground 

 and waste places, Oregon to California; Texas; also Boston, Mass.; 

 introduced from Europe. A common weed on the Pacific coast, but 

 of no economic value. 



74. LAGtJRUS L. 



Spikelets 1-flowered, the rachilla disarticulating above the glumes, 

 pilose under the floret, produced beyond the palea as a bristle; glumes 

 subequal, thin, 1-nerved, villous, gradually tapering into a plumose 

 awn-point; lemma shorter than the glumes, thin, glabrous, bearing on 

 the back above the middle a slender, exserted, somewhat geniculate, 

 awn, the summit bifid, the divisions delicately awn- tipped; palea 

 narrow, thin, the two keels ending in minute awns. Annual, with 

 pale, dense, ovoid or oblong woolly heads. Type species, Lagurus 



