HORDEiE. 651 



flowered; empty glumes subulate, setaceous, as long as the florets 

 or longer or shorter; floral glume 8-10 mm. long, firm, smooth or 

 rough, mucronate, 5-uerved above. 



" This is perhaps the most strikingly variable grass upon the 

 coast, and would furnish several species were tlie characters con- 

 stant. At one extreme its stems, according to Mr. Bolander, are 

 13 ft. liigh and its roots do good service in retaining the soil of the 

 banks of streams. In these luxuriant forms the culm is as large as 

 the little finger, and the leaves, an inch or more broad, are over 2 

 ft. long. The spike is sometimes an incli and a half thick, dense 

 and continuous, with erect appressed branches 2 inches long, or it 

 is much lobed or sometimes interrupted, with the branches in sep- 

 arate clusters. In most of these large forms the florets are pale 

 straw-colored, membranaceous, though in some they are greenish 

 and coriaceous, in which respect they approach the variety t7'iti- 

 coides ; indeed no strict line can be drawn to separate them, and 

 the variety is proposed for those forms that are liable to be taken 

 for some large Triticum. When it violates the cliaracter of the 

 genus so far as to have but 1 spikelet at a joint, there is nothing to 

 distinguish the specimens from Triticum, tliough none have been 

 noticed in which there were not somewhere upon tlie sjiike two 

 spikelets to the joint. The triticoid forms sometimes brancli, and 

 Nuttall collected on Wapatoo Island a subpaniculate form, with 

 branches naked below." Thurb. S. AVats. Bot. Calif. 2 : 326 (1880). 



Colorado, Cassidy ; Montana, A^iderson 6; Wasliington, Sand- 

 herg 437, Suksdorf 1172; California, Orcutt 473; Lower California, 

 Orcutt. 



Colorado to Washington and California. 



7. E. ambiguus V. & S. Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb. 1:280 

 (1893). 



A densely tufted, rigid perennial, 90-120 cm. high. Leaves of 

 the sterile shoots erect, the blades involute, smooth or scabrous, 

 30-45 cm. long, 2-4 mm. wide, leaves of the culm about 4 in num- 

 ber; ligule very short; blades 15-25 cm. long. Spikes erect, 8-13 

 <;m. long; rachis scabrous. Spikelets 2 at each joint or sometimes 

 single at the extremities of the spike, scabrous, 5-9-flowered, 8-23 



