250 triandri\ digynia. Anthistiria. ® 



florets, and three male ones. In all the rest, which I have 

 met with there is one awned hermaphrodite, and six male, 

 or neuter florets in the umbellet. 



5. A. prostrata. Linn. sp. pi. ed. Willd. iv. 901. 



Creeping-. Leaves scarcely longer than their sheaths. In- 

 volucres smooth. Accessary florets male, with a two-valved 

 hairy calyx and one-valved awnless corol. 



A common grass, delighting- in rich pasture ground. 



Culms creeping, or leaning- on other plants, filiform, ra- 

 mous, winding from joint to joint, round, smooth, from one to 

 three feet long. Leaves below, and on leafy shoots bifarious, 

 small, particularly the floral ones, smooth. Sheaths short, 

 compressed. Panicles thin, leafy. Flowers numerous, col- 

 lected in little pedicelled, involucred fascicles from the axills 

 of the exterior leaves. Fascicles, or umbellets, their pedun- 

 cles are jointed near the apex, and from thence upwards em- 

 braced by a long, boat-shaped sheath or involucre. Flowers 

 of the umbellet seven ; one hermaphrodite or female, and six 

 male ; four of the male florets on their proper short pedicels 

 surround a common pedicel which elevates the hermaphro- 

 dite or female one, and the other two male florets ; these last 

 two have also their proper pedicels ; all their insertions are 

 surrounded with hair. 



Hermaphrodite two, or Female three Flowers. 

 Calyx two-valved, pointed. Corol one-valved, a pretty long- 

 twisted awn occupying the place of the other. Stamens 

 three, or none. Male flowers, four at the base, and two em- 

 bracing laterally the hermaphrodite, or female flowers, each 

 of these two has its proper pedicel. Calyx two-valved, lan- 

 ceolate, hairy. Corol one-valved. Stamens three. 



Obs. It often happens that there are two hermaphrodite, 

 and seven male flowers in the fascicle; in that case one of the 

 usual lateral pedicels supports the additional two flowers. 



