GUAMINE.t:. ((;UA.SS FAMILY.) G50 



A. DibxAX, L. Very tall (10-18°) ; spikelets 3 -4-flowered. — Closely re- 

 senibliiig Pliragmites coininunis. Cultivated for ornament, and naturalized 

 in Bedford Co., Va. (.1. IL Curtiss.) (Nat. from Eu.) 



54. MtJNROA, Torr. (PL 15.) 



vSpikelets usually 3-flowered, few (2 - 4) and nearly sessile in the axils of 

 floral leaves ; flowers perfect, or the uppermost abortive. Empty flumes 

 lanceolate, acute, hyaline and 1-uerved ; flowering glumes larger, 3-nerved, 

 rather rigid, the mid-nerve stout, excurrent, the lateral ones scarcely so. — 

 Low or jtrostrate many-stemmed annuals, fasciculately branched, with crowded 

 short flat rigid or jmngent leaves, tlie short slieaths strongly striate. (Named 

 for the English agrostologist, Maj.-Gen. WiUiam Munro.) 



1. M. squarrosa, Torr. (Uaucous, simewhat pubescent and villous at 

 the nodes or glabrous ; leaves 3 - 12" long. — Dry plains, central Kan. to Dak., 

 west to Mont., Utah, and New Mex, 



55. KCELERIA, Pers. (PI. 10.) 



Spikelets 3-7-flowered, crowded in a dense and narrow spike-like panicle. 

 Glumes membranaceous, compressed-keeled, obscurely 3-uerved, barely acute, 

 or the flowering glume often mucronate or bristle-pointed ; the empty ones 

 moderately unecjual, nearly as long as the spikelet. Stamens 3. Grain free. 



— Tufted with simple upright culms, the sheaths often downy; allied to Dac- 

 tylis and Poa. (Named for Prof. G. L. Koeler, an early writer on Grasses.) 



1. K. cristata, Pers. Culms 1 -2° high ; leaves flat, the lower sparingly 

 hairy or ciliate ; panicle narrowly spiked, interrupted or lobed at base ; spike- 

 lets 2 - 4-flowered ; flowering glume acute or mucronate. — Var. grAcilis, 

 Gray, with a long and narrow spike, the flowers usually barely acute. — Dry 

 hills, Penn. to 111. and Kan., thence north and westward. (Eu.) 



56. EATONIA, Kaf. (PI. 10.) 



Spikelets usually 2-flowered, with an abortive rudiment or pedicel, numer- 

 ous, in a contracted or slender panicle, very smooth. Empty glumes some- 

 what equal in length, but very dissimilar, a little shorter than the flowers ; 

 the lower narrowly linear, keeled, 1-nerved ; the upper broadly obovate, folded 

 ronnd the flowers, 3-nerved on the back, not keeled, scarious-margined. Flow- 

 ering glume oblong, obtuse, compressed-boat-shaped, naked, chartaceous ; the 

 palet very thin and hyaline. Stamens 3. Grain linear-o])long, not grooved. 



— Perennial, tall and slender grasses, with simple tufted culms, and often 

 sparsely downy sheaths, flat lower leaves, and small greenish (rarely purjdish) 

 spikelets. (Named for Prof. Amos Eaton, author of a popular Manual of the 

 Botany of the United States, which was for a long time the only general 

 work available for students in this country, and of other popular treatises.) 



* Upper emptji glume roundtd-ohovate and verij ohfnse ; panicle usuallt/ dense. 

 1. E. obtusata, Gray. (PI. 10.) Panicle dense and contracted, somewhat 

 interru])te(l, rarely .slender ; the spikelets crowded on the short erect branches ; 

 upper glume rough on the back; flowers lance-oblong. — Dry soil, N. Penn. to 

 ila., Mich., and far westward. June, July. 



