﻿562 Nash : Revision of Triplasis 



the alternative, the merging of the group with a genus that has, 

 under present conceptions, already passed far beyond the bounds 

 of reason or expediency by having incorporated in it a number of 

 well-marked groups that might much better be treated as genera. 



The genus Trip A 



Ameri 



Mountains, and mainly to the vicinity 



but one species, T. purptirea, occurs in the interior. The other 



two 



them, T. intermedia, being known at present only from Florida. 



TRIPLASIS Beauv. Agrost. Si,p/. i6.f. 10. 1812. 

 [Diplocea Raf. Am. Journ. Sci. 1 : 252. 18 18. 

 [Merisachne Steud. Syn. PI. Gram. 117. 1855. 



Tufted grasses with simple or sparingly branched culms, 

 narrow flat leaves which are usually involute when dry, and 

 terminal and lateral few-branched panicles, the latter concealed 

 in the sheaths. Spikelets few, on short pedicels, 2-4-flowered, the 

 flowers perfect or the upper one staminate ; rachilla glabrous, the 

 mternodes above the first flowering scale much elongated. Scales 

 4-6, usually purple or purplish : outer 2 empty, keeled, 1 -nerved, 

 acute or acuminate: flowering scales deeply 2-lobed at the apex, 

 the lobes truncate to acuminate and pointed, 3 -nerved, the nerves 

 densely pilose with ascending hairs, the awn arising between the 

 lobes, shorter than or exceeding them, pilose for part of its length ; 

 callus manifest, densely pilose, wedge-shaped or subulate, obliquely 

 attached to the rachilla, its hairs making the internodes appear 

 as if pilose on one side for part of their length : palet shorter than 

 the scale, compressed, 2-nerved, the nerves pilose, the hairs on the 

 lower part short, those on the upper part abruptly much longer 

 and forming a conspicuous tuft. Stamens 3. Styles short, dis- 

 tinct : stigmas plumose. Grain cylindric, free, loosely enclosed in 

 the scale and palet. 



Species 3, confined to North America, principally in the east- 



Key to the Species. 



Flowering scale one third or more as broad as long, with a shorter straight awn 3 mm. 



or less long. 



Lobes of the flowering scale rounded or truncate at the irregularly and minutely 

 toothed apex ; awn less than 2 mm. long. ,. T% p ur p urea . 



mm 



2. T. intermedia. 



