482 Key to the System of 



SETARIA. 



2036. Spike-like panicle small, uninterrupted. 



Annual, slender, seldom tall ; leaves flat, lax, greyish-green ; 

 involucrating bristlets short, soon brownish-yellow, their 

 roughness verging upwards; lowest bract much the 

 smallest ; fruit-supporting bract wrinkled. (Possibly 

 immigrated.) S. glauca. 



OFLXSaXENUS. 



2037. Clusters in the panicle somewhat spicately arranged. 



Forest-plant, from dwarf to rather tall, usually beset with 

 hairlets ; lower portion of the stem often rooting ; leaves 

 flaccid, comparatively broad ; panicle rather distantly 

 branched ; awns somewhat sticky, but without any rough- 

 ness, sometimes also developed on the second bract ; 

 fruit -supporting bract smooth, shining, somewhat pointed, 

 rather narrow. O. compositus. 



FAN! CUIK. 



2038. Spikelets forming radiatingly terminal spikes. 



Depressed and partly creeping ; leaves flat, somewhat beset 

 with hairlets ; spikes eleven or less, very slender, uni- 

 laterally flowering, often purplish- or bluish-dark ; spike- 

 lets in pairs, one of the two on a stalk, all narrow and 

 mostly glabrous ; lowest bract quite minute ; second bract 

 longitudinally three-streaked ; third bract five-streaked ; 

 fruit-supporting bract smooth. (Probably immigrated. ) 



F. sauguinale. 



Spikelets forming either panicles or crowded into 

 solitary or scattered spikes... ... ... ... 2039 



2039. Lower branches of the panicle fasciculated or whorled 2040 



Panicle spike-like or all its branches and branchlets 

 scattered ... ... 2045 



2040. Lower branches of the panicle fasciculated ... ... 2041 



Lower branches of the panicle whorled ... ... 2043 



2041. Lowest bract very much shorter than the spikelet. 



Tall, glabrous ; leaves rather long, gradually pointed ; 

 panicle widely spreading ; spikelets scattered, stalked, 

 rather narrow, acute, pale ; lowest bract truncate-blunt ; 

 second and third bracts five- or seven -streaked ; stamens 

 only in the pistillate flower ; fruit-supporting bract smooth 

 and shining. F. decompositum. 



