502 GRAMINACEAE. [Oplismenus. 
roundish tubercles; the sheath short and open. Ligule short-ciliate. Raceme 
short, not protruding beyond the upper leaves, glabrous, seldom earing 
more than 4 spikelets on subterete stiff appressed pedicels of nearly twice 
their own length. Spikelets ovoid-obtuse, 1/4", glabrous. Lowest glume !/s 
the length of the spikelet, ovate, 1—3-nerved, sometimes indistinctly tri- 
cuspid; second and third glumes equal, ovate-obtuse, prominently 5—7-nerved 
and bicallose at their bases, the latter with a hyaline palea of about 
half its size. Fertile con of nearly the same length, white, charta- 
ceous, its glume obov and faintly 5-nerved. Lodicules 2, short, 
truncate. Anthers 3, as, Ovary elongate ventricose, constricted 
below the clavate bases of the long styles, which end in short ue 
stigmatic brushes and protrude near the apex of the floret. — P. ¢ 
choideum, Hbd. in oo 
Lagenophora Mauiensis, Viola Mawiensis, Lobelia Orel Wilkesia pretialiore 
Plantago pachyphylia, staaaigi robusta, Selaginellu deflexa, etc., constitutes the peculiar 
vegetation of that unique 
3. OPLISMENUS, Beauv. 
Spikelets with one fertile floret, in irregular fascicles on one side of 
the alternate spike-like branches of a simple panicle; the 3 herbaceous 
empty glumes unequal, gradually larger from the lowest one, either all 
awned, or the one or two upper ones only mucronate or pointed, the 
lowest with the longest awn, the third supplied with a palea. Fertile 
floret as in Panicum. — Weak decumbent grasses with broad leaves. * 
A tropical and pag agoren genus, only one species extending to the southern par 
Europe and a few to S. Africa and Australia. 
1. 0. compositus, R. d: Sch., var. sylvaticus, Tr. — Stem slender, 1'/2--3 ft. 
long, decumbent and rooting near the base, branching, naked below the 
panicle, puberulous at and below the nodes. Leave s thin, dark-green, 
ted, br 
t of 
ne variegated , oad-lanceolate, 4—5‘ * eR very acute, 
rounded a e base, antrorsely scabrous at the margins, glabrous, with 
sheaths arate ‘ii shorter than their internodes. Ligule long- -ciliate. 
Panicle 4—7‘ long, bearing at long intervals 3—7 spike-like branches of 
l'/2—1/2‘ in length. Spikelets in fascicles of 2 or 3, articulate on short 
pedicels which are setulose at their bases, 15/s” iecigs ovoid, purplish. 
Sterile glumes herbaceous, puberulous; the lowest 1/3 shorter than the 
spikelet, 3—5-nerved, with the strong median nerve running into & | 
smooth awn of two or three times its own length; second glume '/+ shorter 
than the spikelet, 5—7-nerved, with an awn of less than its own length. 
Third glume obovate, exceeding the fertile floret, 7—9-nerved, ease 
glabrous, supplied with a short and narrow herbaceous palea. Fe 
