7« TRIANDRTA. DIGYNIA. milium. 



Root fibrous, pprennial. Culms numenus, a little branched and 

 geniculate at the base, assurs^ent, a foot and a half or two feet 

 high, leafy. Leaves 2 — 3 inches lotig, 2 — 4 lines wide, acu- 

 minate, nerved, covered with rit^id hairs. Sheaths striate ; the 

 uppermost ones leafless. Stipule bearded. Panicle about two 

 inches long, consisting of a few, erect, and somewhat appressed 

 branches bearing the flowers in a racemose manner ; fiedicels 

 clavate. Flowers oblong, purplish at the tip. Calyx smooth^ 

 acuminate; inferior glume a liitle shorter, emarginate or bifid, 

 3-iiervtd; superior glume 5-nerved. Valves of the corolla 

 lanceolate, acute; the inferior involving the superior, 3- nerved. 

 iiiamrns 3; anthers purple. Styles 2, short; stigmas com- 

 pound, purple. Seed broad-ovate, brown. JVectaries very 



short, lanceolate. Fertile Jlowers radical. Scapes growing 



in fascicles from among the roots and from the lower part of 

 the stem, 1—3 inches long, filiform, with 1 or 2 pubescent 

 sheaths bearing rudiments of leaves. Flowers terminal, single^ 

 Glumes of the calyx at first lanceolate ; as the seed ripenSj 

 becoming ovate, acu'Tiiuate and coriaceous; inferior glume 

 shortei, niiiiy-ntrved ; superior glume similar, a little shorten 

 Cjrolla remarkably ventricose when the seed is mature ; valves 

 un^-qual, acuminate; the inferior 7-nerved, under the micrO" 

 scope app'^aring covered with minute appressed hairs; supe» 

 rior valve 4 nerved (midrib wanting.) No traces of stamens^ 

 Styles 2, very short. Stigmas plumose^ Seed large, ovate, 

 brown. 



Hab. In sandy swamps in the pine-barrens of New-Jersey; 

 particularly abundant ai a place called Quaker-Bridge. Au- 

 gusi — September. 



Pursh, who appears to have first noticed this grass, de- 

 scribes the flowers of the panicle as antheriferous only ; but in 

 all the specimens which I examined I have found them to pro- 

 duce perfect seeds, though smaller than those of the radical 

 flowers. This Milium will probably hereafter be the type of 

 a new genus, as it differs so remarkably from every other 

 known species. 



3. M. pungens*: calm erect; leaves lanceolate, very 

 short, pungent, at length involute ; panicle contracted ; 

 branches generally in pairs, 2-flowered ; flowers awnless, 

 ovate ; corolla hairy. 



Root perennial, soboliferous. Culm a foot or 18 inches highj 

 simple, rigid. Radical leaves 6—8 inches long and about a 

 line wide, erect, acute and pungent, a little concave, strongly 

 rei-ved and scabrous above, smooth beneath ; culm-leaves 

 varyiiig from an inch to scai-cely a line in length, lanceolatCj 

 rig.d. Sheaths swelling, striate, scabrous, membranaceous 

 on the margin. S/ipule ovate, lacerate, and bearded. Panicle 

 oblong, seldom with more than a dozen flowers; branches 

 a little flesuous, bearing 1 or 2 flowers on the extremities. 

 Glumes of the calyx ovatCj concave, obtuse or abruptly acu- 



