192 THE TRUE GRASSES. 



tries excepting Australia and South Africa. Tall, rigid, 

 perennial grasses. 



Sec. I. Sitanion Kafin. (as a genus) (Polyantherix 

 Nees). Bachis articulate ; empty glumes usually two- 

 to many-cleft, long-awned. 



Sec. II. Clindymus. Bachis continuous ; empty and 

 flowering glumes awned. 



Sec. III. Psammdymus. Like Sec. II, but the empty 

 and flowering glumes awnless. To this section belongs 

 E. arenarius L., which has long, creeping rhizomes, stiff 

 leaves, elongated ligules, and more downy flowering 

 glumes. On the banks of the North and Baltic Seas, 

 rarely inland, thence extending through Russia and 

 North Asia to North America. Very well adapted to 

 binding drifting sands, and often planted for this pur- 

 pose. In Iceland bread is made from the fruit. 



289. (276) AsprellaW. (Hystrix Munch, Gymnostichum 

 Schreb.). Like the preceding, but the spikelets are 

 usually in pairs on short pedicels ; empty glumes want- 

 ing or appearing as simple rudiments in the lowest spike- 

 lets of each spike. 



Species four, two in N. America [(A. Hystrix Willd. 

 and A. Californica Beuth.)], one in Siberia, and one in 

 New Zealand. 



SUB-TRIBE F. Parianeae. 



Spikelets usually iu sixes at each joint of the rachis, forming a false 

 whorl which consists of two opposite groups of three; in one the 

 middle spikelet (primary branch) is $ and iu the other & ; all the 

 lateral spikelets are $ on broad pedicels which are grown together; 

 empty glumes (apparently) decussate with the flowering ones. The 

 2 spikelet stands farther in. The terminal spikelet is solitary, 

 large, $ , with opposite empty glumes in the median line of the 

 flowering glumes. All the spikelets are awnless. Stamens 10-40 in 

 each * flower. Fruit as in Triticce. 



290. (31) Pariana Aubl. Grasses with broad, some- 

 what petiolate leaves. The $ spikelets form an invo- 

 lucre around the $ and fall away with it. 



Species ten, in tropical South America. Eremitis 

 Doll, appears to be a species of this genus whose flowers 

 are aborted, having only one stamen in each $ flower. 



