PHALAHIDE^. 181 



b. First glume about biilf as ]oug as the second, third and 



fourth empty, awned on tlie back 43 



b. First and second glumes subequal, third and often the 

 fourth containing a staminate flower 44 



43. (102). Phalakis L. Sp. PL 54(1753). (Can-ary-grass. ) 

 Typhoides Mffincli, Meth. 201 (1794). Baldinyera Gartn. Mey. 

 & Schreb. Fl. Wett. 1: 43 (1799). Digraphis Trin. Fund. Agrost. 

 137 (1820). EndaUex Kafin. Ser. Bull. Bot. 1: 220 (1830). 



Spikelets 1-flowered, flat, densely crowded in an ovoid or cylin- 

 drical spike or spikelike panicle, the rachis articulate above the 

 outer glumes. Glumes usually 6, two outer larger ones thin, com- 

 plicate, 3-nerved, the keel sometimes winged, the third and fourth 

 small, lanceolate or reduced to small bristles or one deficient, the 

 fifth smaller, complicate, delicately 3-5-nerved, or apparently 4- 

 nerved, the central nerve short and obscure, enveloping the sixth 

 glume, which is also complicate, enclosing the flower, apparently 2- 

 nerved, the external angle between the nerves longitudinally ciliate. 

 No ordinary palea. Stamens 3. Styles distinct. Grain oblong, 

 enclosed in the 2 upper glumes, but not adherent. 



Annual or perennial grasses, with flat leaf-blades. Panicle 

 either strictly spicate or in the form of a head, or having branches 

 which form dense clusters. 



There are ten species, found in Southern Europe, North Africa, 

 and North America. 



In this genus it is the lowest two persistent empty glumes that 

 are the largest, the second pair very narrow, sometimes reduced to 

 small bristles, those of the upper pair thin and hyaline; and some- 

 times in both of them the central nerve is very faint or quite obso- 

 lete, a character adduced as an argument that this upper one is a 

 two-nerved palea on the floral axis, and not a glume on the main 

 rachilla. 



A. Outer glumes with a broad-winged keel 1, 2 



B. Outer glumes with a narrow-winged keel above the middle. 3 



C. Outer glumes not winged- keeled (a) 



a. Panicle short, dense 4 



a. Panicle slender or branching 5 



