6 



grass, has long been referred by botanists to C. caadata and C setosa^ 

 from both of which it is very distinct. 



"The name Setaria^ which has been taken up by many botanists for 

 a nmnber of well-known weedy grasses with dense, spike-like, bristly 

 panicles, was first applied b}" Beauvois (Flora Oware et Benin.) to a spe- 

 cies of Pennisetum. At an earlier date the name was employed by 

 Acharius to designate a genus of lichens. According to all rulfes of 

 botanical nomenclature, this last fact renders the name untenable for 

 designating a genus of flowering plants; and were this not the case, 

 its first application to a species of Pennisetum placed it at once among 

 the synon3aiis, which, according to recent rulings, would debar its 

 further use. Some botanists have referred the grasses in question to 

 the genus Panicum,, from the species of which they differ only in the 

 presence of setse issuing from the pedicels of the spikelets below their 

 articulation. It is this character, combined with their inflorescence, 

 which led them to be separated from Panicwm^ in which genus the 

 earlier described species were first placed. The taking up of the 

 name ChamwrapMs^ a genus established b}" R. Brown upon certain 

 Australian and south Asiatic grasses having spikelets like those of 

 Panicuin^ but with the partial rachis of the inflorescence produced 

 into long awn-like points beyond the insertion of the upper or only 

 spikelet, appears to have been ill advised, and the more recent adop- 

 tion of Lropliorim for Setaria is equall}^ so. The latter genus, Ixo- 

 phorus^^ possesses well-marked characters of generic value, and the 

 same is true of ChamierajyJus. Neither of these names can be taken 

 up for Setaria^ unless they are used in a very broad sense to include 

 all the species of ^rt/wci«/^ thrown by Steudel into the section Setaria j 

 that is, those species, as Schlechtendal states it, having '''' sjpiculcB in 

 axibus inflorescentiae, va/rice evolutis pedicellatce sessilesve, axium ster- 

 ilyimi, setas (Bmulantium majore minoreve copia cmn s^nculis nascente.^'' 

 This would bring together a heterogeneous assemblage of species, the 

 natural result of the adoption of characters too artificial, which, with 

 our present ideas of genera, would be much more easily and more 

 systematically treated if divided into genera upon more natural and 

 genetic characters. While our Setarias, so called, might, under a 

 broad conception of the genus Panicum^ be referred to it, they seem 

 to form a well-marked group, as indicated by the characters noted 

 above, which it seems best to maintain as a genus, under the new name 

 ChcBtocJdoa.^'''^ 



CHiETOCHLOA Scribn. U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Agros. Bui. 4: 38 (1897). Setaria 

 Beauv. Agrost. 113 (1812), in part, not Fl. Oware et Benin. 2: 80 (1807), 

 nor Acharius (1798) . Chamicraphis Kuntze in part, not R. Br. Ixophorus Nash 

 (1895) , not Schlecht. (1861-62) . 



1 Scribn. U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Agros. Bui. 4: 1. (1897.) 

 2 Scribn. U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Agros. Bui. 4: 38. (1897.) 



