60 POACEAE. 



Puccinellia angustata (R. Br.) Nash. Creeping by stolons; stems low, 

 slender; leaves somewhat fleshy, narrow, involute; spikelets 3-7-flowered; 

 first glume usually 1-nerved. 



Salt marshes along the coast. 



Puccinellia distans (L.) Parl. (Poa nutkaensis Presl.) Not stoloniferous; 

 stems geniculate, 20-60 cm. high; blades not fleshy, flat or folded; panicle 

 branches usually in fours or fives, spreading or reflexed; spikelets 3-6-flowered ; 

 first glume usually 3-nerved. 



Seashores; very variable. Forms with the panicle narrow and the branches 

 ascending have been referred perhaps correctly to the European P. festucae- 

 formis (Host) Parl. 



85. SPARTINA. CORD-GRASS. 



Coarse perennial grasses with strong creeping rootstocks, rigid 

 simple stems and long tough leaves; inflorescence of 1 -sided 

 spreading or erect alternate spikes; spikelets 1 -flowered, narrow, 

 deciduous, borne in two rows on the rachis, articulated with the 

 very short pedicels below the glumes; glumes keeled, very un- 

 equal; lemma keeled, equalling or shorter than the second glume; 

 palea often longer than its lemma; grain free. 



Spartina michauxiana Hitchc. Stems 1-2 m. tall, simple, smooth; leaf 

 blades flat, keeled, long-acuminate, involute in age, scabrous on the margins; 

 spikes 5-20, 5-12 cm. long, ascending, sometimes peduncled; spikelets closely 

 imbricated; glumes very scabrous on the keels, awn-pointed; lemma scabrous 

 on the midrib, which terminates below the 2-toothed apex. 



Cascades of the Columbia River, Hall, perhaps in our limits. 



86. BECKMANNIA. 



Tall erect perennials; inflorescence a terminal panicle of erect 

 spikes; spikelets 1-2-flowered, globose, compressed; glumes mem- 

 branous, saccate, obtuse or abruptly acute; lemmas 1 or 2, 

 narrow, thin-membranous; palea hyaline; grain oblong, free, 

 enclosed in the lemma. 



Beckmannia erucaefonnis (L.) Host. Perennial, the stems stout, 60- 

 90 cm. tall, glabrous throughout; leaf blades 10-30 cm. long, 6-10 mm. wide, 

 scabrous, the loose sheaths exceeding the internodes; panicle narrow, 10-30 

 cm. long, the densely-flowered branches mostly solitary and erect; spikelets 

 nearly orbicular, flattened, 2 mm. long. 



In wet meadows, rare west of the Cascade Mountains. Victoria, Van- 

 couver Island, Macoun; Colquitz River, Vancouver Island, Macoun; Wil- 

 lamette Valley. 



87. CYNODON. 



Low creeping perennials with short flat leaves and slender 

 >pikcs digitately arranged at the ends of the branches; spikelets 

 1 -flowered, awnless, sessile in two rows along one side of a slender 

 rachis, forming unilateral spikes; rachilla jointed above the glumes 

 and prolonged behind the palea into a slender bristle; glumes 2, 

 narrow, keeled, usually acute; lemma broader, usually a little 

 longer than the glumes, obtuse, more or less pilose on the keel 



