No. 46. 

 ERAGROSTIS CURTIPEDICELLATA Buckley. 



Plant i)ereiinial, tul'ted with numerous abortive culms at Lulbous base. 



Roots coai'se, with dense, tawny root hairs. 



Culms stout, erect, rarely branching, terete, nearly solid, smooth, 1 to 2 

 feet tall. 



Leaves of sterile culms rather numerous, with more or less involute blades 3 

 to () inches long; of stem 4 to 8; sheaths exceeding the iuternodes, open and rather 

 loose above, smooth or with few scattered hairs along the exposed margins; blade 

 involute toward the tapering point, 2 to 2^ lines wide, 4 to 6 inches long, smooth, 

 rigid; ligule and throat, a row of fine hairs 3 to 2i lines long; sheaths and lower 

 sides of leaf often glandular viscid. 



Inflorescence an oblong pyramidal erect panicle 8 to 12 inches long; sjjreading 

 branches 3 to 5 inches long, much subdivided, mostly alternate, with tufts of 

 white hairs in the axils, the solitary appressed spikelets borne mostly on strict, 

 hispid lateral branchlets. 



Spikelets, oblong-linear, less than 1 line wide. 2 to 3 lines long, often purplish, 

 on hispid pedicels less than half their own length, iuternodes of the slightly zigzag 

 rachilla ^ line long; first and second glumes ovate, acute, carinate, thin, herba- 

 ceous, 1-nerved, minutely hispid on keel above, ^ line long; floral glumes lanceo- 

 late, acute, prominently nerved, f line long; palet linear, curved so that its two 

 jjubescent nerves appear outside of the flowering glume. 



Grain, amber color, fiarrowly cylindrical, i line long. 



Plate XLVI ; a, spikelet ; b, empty glumes ; c, floral glume; d, palet. The 

 figure does not show the hairy ligule. 



This species is closely related to E. pectinacea, being less diS^use, with shorter 

 branches and larger sjiikelets. 



It seems to be pretty closely confined to Texas and northward to southern 

 Kansas. 



