Atropis. GRAMINE^E. 399 



Eureka and near San Francisco (Bolandcr) ; Sierra Valley (Lcmmon) ; northward to Washing- 

 ton Territory and east to the Saskatchewan, Nebraska and New Mexico ; also on both shores of 

 the Atlantic and in Asia. Variously referred by different authoi's, under numerous specific names, 

 to Poa, Glycerin, Fcstucu and Atropis. With specimens from coast localities only it is not difficult 

 to make out both A. distmis and A. maritima. ; the forms with few-flowered spikelets in spread- 

 ing panicles answering for the one, while those with many-flowered spikelets on the solitary or 

 geminate rays of an erect and somewhat one-sided panicle correspond with the description of 

 A. maritime. Specimens from numerous mountain localities sustain the view of Trinius, who 

 under Poa Atropis (Mem. Acad. St. Petersb. 1831, 389) places Poa distant, Linn., P. maritima, 

 Huds., and several other related species as varieties of P. arenaria, Retz. In bringing them 

 together under Atropis it seems preferable to adopt one of the specific names by whicli they have 

 been heretofore well known. The specimens collected by Lemmon in Sierra Valley are from 

 4 to 10 inches high, but with a spreading panicle, and approach in size the form which has been 

 called Glyceria anyustata, though in that the branches of the panicle are erect and rarely more 

 than 1-Howered. Bolander's plant collected at Eureka is exactly the European A, festucaformis, 

 while his specimens from near San Francisco and overflowed by the tides would be A. maritima, 

 were not the branches of the panicle in fives ; one of the chief characters given for that species 

 being the solitary or geminate rays. 



2. A. procumbens. Annual, its root-fibres with a copious cottony pubescence ; 

 culms sometimes decumbent at base, stout, 2 to 10 inches high, much enlarged 

 below by the crowded withered sheaths, glaucous : leaves flat, or at most folded, 

 those of the culm an inch long or less, about a line wide, barely tapering to the cari- 

 nate scabrous apex ; ligule long, acute ; sheaths broad, striate, mostly flat : panicle 

 -|- to 1 1 inches long, its base exceeded by the upper sheath ; rays solitary or in twos 

 or threes, at length spreading, the few spikelets usually distichous ; spikelets 2-5- 

 flowered, subsessile : glumes half as long as the lower florets, the lower acute, its 

 lateral nerves not extending half its length ; upper broadly ovate, submucronate, 

 3- or indistinctly 5-nerved : lower palet 2 lines long, broad, obtuse, obscurely erose- 

 toothed, often mucronate, strongly scabrous on the keel, the marginal nerves obscure, 

 slightly pubescent at base ; the strongly ciliate upper palet mostly equalling the 

 lower. Poa procumbens, Curt. P. rupestris, With. Sderochloa procumbens, Beauv. 

 Festuca procumbens, Kunth, Enum. i. 393 and Suppl. 328, t. 29, fig. 3. 



Mendocino County (Bolandcr, n. 6467), collected with Agrostis mucronata, Presl, which closely 

 resembles it in general appearance ; western coast of Europe. All the specimens have dense 

 spike-like panicles with a close resemblance to and the soft feeling of some dwarf Alopccurus. 

 When the short secund branches of the panicle are expanded the plant has a widely different 

 appearance, as is shown by specimens from the coast of England, with both conditions in the 

 same specimen. 



3. A. Californica, Munro Ms. Densely tufted perennial, its somewhat rigid 

 culms a foot or more high, and the pale-green foliage minutely scabrous : radi- 

 cal leaves about half as long as the culm, mostly flat, a line or more wide ; culm- 

 leaves short, the uppermost often reduced to a mucro, acute-pointed ; ligule short, 

 truncate : panicle 2 to 3 inches long, contracted, or with the rays (in pairs or threes) 

 spreading ; spikelets 3 - 7-flowered, ovate, flattish, pale green or purplish, rneni- 

 branaceous, mostly dioecious : glumes acute, rough on the back, the upper broader, 

 distinctly 3-nerved for half its length, f the length of its floret, the lower irregularly 

 3-ncrved : lower palet 2 lines long, the intermediate nerves faint, all but the central 

 disappearing a third below the broadly scarious irregularly erose apex, the lower 

 half of the middle and marginal nerves usually silky-pubescent ; upper palet \ the 

 shorter, broadly 2-nerved, with wide inttexed margins, ciliate on the nerves and 

 narrowly truncate above. Sderochloa Californica, Munro in Benth. PI. Hartw. 

 342. Eragrostis Fendleri, Steud. Syn. Gram. 278. Poa andina, Nutt. in herb. 

 Gray (not Trin.) ; Watson, Bot. King Exp. 388 ; Vasey, Bot. Wheeler Exp. 289. 



In various localities near San Francisco (Bolander) ; Monterey (Harhocg) ; and in the moun- 

 tains through the interior to Colorado and New Mexico, and southward into Mexico. In the list 

 of Hartweg's plants this was enumerated as "Sderochloa Californica, Munro, sp. n." As no 

 description was given, several have supposed that the following species was the plant intended to 

 be thus named, and it has been distributed under the name, thus causing much confusion. Besides 

 abundant other differences, the great dissimilarity in the foliage allows the two to be distinguished 



