282 GRAMINEJS. Calamagrostis. 



Varies with the leaves flat except near the apex, or all strictly convolute ; very pale green. The 

 panicle is sometimes continuous, but usually the lowest and sometimes the lower two fascicles 

 of rays are separated by an inch or so of the naked axis ; color dark brownish or blackish purple, 

 green and dark purple, or straw-colored throughout. 



8. C. Aleutica, Trin. Culms stout, 2 to 5 feet high, erect or subgeniculate 

 below, smooth except at top : leaves erect, rather rigid, those of the culm flat, long- 

 attenuate, about a foot long and 4 or 5 lines broad, rough on both sides ; ligule ovate 

 or truncate ; sheaths very loose, mostly much shorter than the internodes : panicle 

 very rough, 6 to 10 inches long, an inch wide or less, rather loose, subflexuose at 

 top, somewhat interrupted; rays 2 inches long or less, in crowded clusters, the 

 branches flower-bearing to the base : spikelets 2| to 3 lines long, mostly exceeding 

 the pedicels, pale or brownish : glumes nearly equal, lanceolate, acuminate, mem- 

 branaceous, roughish all over : palets like the glumes in texture and but slightly 

 shorter, the lower acutish, minutely 4-toothed and soon lacerate, nearly smooth, its 

 straight or curved awn inserted just below the middle and barely as long ; hairs 

 scarcely half as long and about equalling the sparse tuft of the very minute rudi- 

 ment ; upper palet roughish on the two conspicuous nerves, shortly 2-tootheJ and 

 ciliate at apex. Bong. Veg. Sitch. 171 ; Hook. Fl. Bor.-Am. ii. 241 ; Griseb. in 

 Ledeb. Fl. Ross. iv. 427 ; Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. iv. 80. C. albicans, Buckl. Proc. 

 Acad. Philad. 1862, 92 ; Gray, same, 334. 



San Francisco, Oakland, etc. (Bolander), and northward to Washington Territory and Alaska. 

 This is the most robust species of the coast and forms dense tufts on the hillsides. The lower 

 leaves break off near the sheath, leaving these erect and rigid. The panicle is sometimes pale 

 straw-color, but generally more or less tinged with brownish-purple and sometimes of the bronze- 

 color so noticeable in some species of Aira from the northwest coast ; the palets are sometimes 

 slightly colored also. It varies with the lower glume acuminate, considerably longer than the 

 upper and over 3 lines long. 



9. C. sylvatica, DC. Culms erect, rather rigid, 1 to 2 feet high, clothed at 

 base by crowded dead sheaths : radical leaves reaching nearly to the panicle ; culm 

 leaves 3 to 8 inches long, the uppermost shorter, all less than 2 lines wide, attenuate- 

 pointed, more or less scabrous and involute ; ligule about a line long, lacerate ; 

 sheaths more or less equalling the internodes, rarely fringed at the throat, the upper- 

 most very loose : panicle inclosed at base when young, spike-like, strict, 3 or 4 

 inches long, about inch wide, very dense, often slightly interrupted below, pale to 

 dark-purple throughout ; rays mostly in fives, an inch long or less, appressed and 

 like the rhachis very rough : spikelets 3 to 3 lines long, on short roughened pedi- 

 cels : glumes ovate-lanceolate, very acute, the upper distinctly 3-nerved, scabrous, 

 a little exceeding the palets : lower palet in texture like the glumes, acute, 4-toothed, 

 scabrous, grooved on the back ; awn attached very near the base, twisted and roxigh 

 below, bent at the middle and exserted more than half the length of the glumes ; 

 hairs unequal, the longest at the sides about \ as long as the palet ; upper palet thin, 

 hyaline, broadly 2-nerved, 2-toothed ; rudiment stout, including its hairs about the 

 length of the palet. Reichenb. Icon. Fl. Germ. t. 138; Griseb. in Ledeb. Flor. 

 Ross. iv. 426 ; Gray, 1. c. ; Watson, Bot. King Exp. 379. C. purpurascens, R. Br., 

 App. Richards. Voy. 3. 



Mount Daiia, at 12,500 feet altitude, and on the sea-coast (Bolander) ; Oregon (Nuttall) ; 

 Humboldt Mountains, Nevada ( Watson) ; Rocky Mountains of Colorado by several collectors. 

 Also in northern and middle Europe and Siberia. All the. North American specimens have a 

 much denser and stricter panicle than any from Europe with which we have been able to compare 

 them, though those collected in Mendocino County by Bolander (without number) approach them 

 in this respect. The plant seems to be much more leafy at the coast than upon the mountains, 

 the latter usually having more rigid culms and the leaves mostly involute. The Mendocino 

 specimens also show a distinct ring of hairs at the junction of the blade and sheath, a character 

 given for the European plant. The color of the panicle is very variable, running from greenish 

 straw-color through various degrees of purple to deep purple all over ; these differences some- 

 times occurring in specimens of the same set show that the purple form cannot be regarded as a 

 variety even. Sometimes the lower sheaths are purple-tinged, and in specimens with dark-colored 

 glumes the lower palet also partakes of this color more or less. 



