PANICS^ 



183 



annual with a drooping panicle. Pard-grass (P. barbinode 

 Trin.), a Brazilian grass much cultivated for forage in the 

 American tropics, is sparingly grown in the southern 

 parts of Florida and Texas. It is a coarse grass, with 

 stolons several feet in length, strongly- 

 bearded nodes, and an inflorescence of 

 several spike-like racemes racemosely 

 arranged. Guinea -grass (P. maximum 

 Jacq.) is an African grass, also much 

 grown in the tropics for forage. It is an 

 erect bunch-grass, as much as 8 feet high, 

 with a large spreading panicle. Guinea- 

 grass is too susceptible to frost for culti- 

 vation in the United States except in 

 southern Florida. Texas millet, or Colo- 

 rado-grass, is P. texanum Buckl., a native 

 of the Colorado River valley in Texas 

 (Par. 62). Panicum bulbosum H. B. K., 

 of the Southwest, produces well-marked 

 corms. 



218. Echinochloa Beam. — ^A small 

 genus that is included by some as a 

 section of Panicum. The spikelets are 

 as in Panicum, but the sterile lemma 

 and usually the second glume are 

 awned, often conspicuously so. The 

 fruit is pointed and the palea is free at 

 the summit. The spikelets are in short 

 racemes, these racemosely arranged. 

 All the species are annuals. One 

 species, barnyard-grass, E. Crus-galli 

 (L.) Beauv., is a common weed in Fig. 22. Echinochloa fru- 



, 1 1 I,' , t '1 » mentacea. Inflorescence, 



waste places and cultivated soil. A X3^, spikeiet, x5. 



