306 GUtAMINBJB. Disticldis. 



crowded sheaths ; leaves rigid, mostly involute. Pistillate spikelets much more rigid 

 than the staminate. Demazeria, Dumort. Brizopyrum, Link. 

 A small genus separated from Poa on account of its many nerved coriaceous palets. 



1. D. maritima, Raf. Culms 6 to 18 inches high, sometimes branched heloAv : 

 leaves about 4 inches long, usually distichously spreading, long-acuminate : spike 

 oblong, 1 to 3 inches long; spikelets 4 to 6 lines long, 5 - 1 2-ttowered : florets 

 smooth, excepting the minutely ciliate keels of the upper palet. Journ. Phys. 

 Ixxxix. 104 ; Benth. El. Austral, vii. 637. Uniola spicata, Linn. Festuca dis- 

 tichophylla, Michx. Brizopyrum Americanum, Link, Hort. Berol. i. 1GO. Brizo- 

 pyrum, boreale, Presl, Rel. Ha?nk. i. 280. Poa Michauxii, Kunth, Enum. i. 325. 

 Brizopyrum spicatum, Hook. & Arn. Bot. Beechey, 403 ; Gray, Manual, G28. 



Var. stricta. Leaves setaceously convolute : panicle loose ; spikelets few, erect, 

 often an inch long, 10 20-flowered. Uniola stricta, Torr. in Ann. Lye. N. York, 

 i. 155, and Marcy's Rep. 301, t. 20. Uniola multiflora, JSTutt. El. Ark. 148. Bri- 

 zopyrum spicatum, var. strictum, Gray. 



The typical form at San Francisco (Bolander), San Luis Obispo (Brewer), and common on the 

 Atlantic coast, usually near salt water. The variety at the sink of the Mohave (Cooper), in Puerto 

 Canon (Brewer), and the prevalent grass in alkaline localities through the interior to the Rocky 

 Mountains and southward into Mexico. Exceedingly variable ; specimens from the coast are yel- 

 lowish throughout with short spikelets, while inland localities furnish forms with very long erect 

 spikelets and the plant usually green. Torrey's U. stricta was founded on an extreme form 

 with very long erect spikelets. Sometimes the culms bear clusters of arrested hardened sheaths, 

 appearing like one-sided cones, probably due to the wound of some insect. Brizopyrum Doug- 

 lasii, Hook. & Arn., which resembles this in little save in being dioecious, is referred to Poa. 



47. LOPHOCHLSJNA, Nees. 



Panicle a simple elongated virgate secund raceme. Spikelets long, narrow, many- 

 flowered, compressed. Rhachis breaking up at maturity, undulate, smooth, its joints 

 less than half the length of the florets. Glumes shorter than the lowest florets, 

 membranous, the lower 1 -nerved, the upper and larger 3-nerved. Lower palet her- 

 baceous, becoming chartaceo-coriaceous, narrowed below to a rounded smooth callus, 

 scarious and 2-lobed or truncate at apex, prominently 7-nerved, the midnerve pro- 

 duced as a straight rigid awn. Upper palet nearly equal, the central portion similar 

 in texture to the lower, the margin and apex scarious, strongly 2-nerved and 2-keeled, 

 folded between the nerves, and the margins strongly infolded, the nerves with a 

 simply or lacerately toothed wing-like appendage. Stamens 3, violaceous (at least 

 in the first species). Scales short, fleshy, connate. Ovary smooth, ovoid, stipitate : 

 styles very long, divergent, plumose near the apex. Grain somewhat triangularly 

 compressed, strongly furrowed : pericarp loose, 2-horned with the bases of the stig- 

 mas. Tayl. Ann. Nat. Hist. i. 283. 



Soft and smooth annuals, of which two species are known, with somewhat the appearance of 

 a Bromus. The conspicuously toothed marginal wings upon the upper palet distinguish this 

 from all our other genera. 



1. L. Californica, Nees, 1. c. Culms tufted, about 2 feet high, constricted and 

 dark colored at the nodes, clothed below by the overlapping sheaths : lower leaves 

 4 to 6, the upper 1 or 2 inches long, obtuse, about 2 lines wide, barely roughish ; 

 ligule 3 lines long, very thin, acute : panicle 6 to 9 inches long, of 6 to 12 suberect 

 or spreading spikelets about an inch long, on stout flattened pedicels a third as long : 

 glumes colorless and shining except the nerves, the upper irregularly notched at 

 apex : lower palet 3 lines long, the rough awn as long, very scabrous on and between 

 the nerves ; the three central nerves uniting above, the others evanescent ; upper 



