524 MISC. PUBLICATION 200, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 



107. BtTCHLOE Engelm. 



(Bulbilis Raf.) 



Plants dioecious. Staminate spikelets 2-flowered, sessile and close- 

 ly imbricate, in two rows on one side of a slender rachis, forming a 

 short spike; glumes somewhat unequal, rather broad, 1-nerved, 

 acutish; lemmas longer than the glumes, 3-nerved, rather obtuse, 



Figure 1106.— Munroa sgwrrosa. Plant, X Vi\ group of spikelets, spikelet, and floret, X 5. (Zuck 43, 



Ariz.) 



whitish; palea as long as its lemma. Pistillate spikelets mostly 4 or 

 5 in a short spike or head, this falling entire, usually 2 heads to the 

 inflorescence, the common peduncle short and 

 included in the somewhat inflated sheaths of 

 the upper leaves, the thickened indurate rachis 

 and broad outer (second) glumes forming a rigid 

 white obliquely globular structure crowned by 

 the green-toothed summits of the glumes; first 

 glume (inside) narrow, thin, mucronate, well 

 developed to obsolete in a single head; second 

 glume firm, thick and rigid, rounded on the 

 back, obscurely nerved, expanded in the middle, with inflexed mar- 

 gins, enveloping the floret, abruptly contracted above, the summit 

 with 3 green rigid acuminate lobes; lemma firm-membranaceous, 

 3-nerved, dorsally compressed, broad below, narrowed into a 3-lobed 



Figure 1107.— Distribution of 

 Munroa squarrosa. 



