CENCHRUS MYOSUROIDES H. B. K. 



Culms erect or from an ascending base, usually simple, 2 to 4 feet high, stout, 

 glabrous, glaucous. 



Leaves of the stem 6 to 10; sheaths glabrous, nearly contiguous; blade glabrous 

 to minutely strigose, flat or sometimes involute, 2 to 4 lines wide, commonly 5 to 

 12 inches long; ligule fimbriate to the base. Radical leaves early dying. 



Inflorescence a short-pedunculate or partly sheathed, compact, erect spike 3 to 

 4 lines thick, 3 to 8 inches long, rachis minutely pubescent, spikelets borne singly. 



Spikelets 2 to 2^ lines long surrounded at the base by a ring of many retrosely 

 barbed stiff bristles of different lengths, the longest equaling the spikelets; body 

 lanceolate, acute, terete. 



Glumes 4; first membranaceous, ovate, 1- to3-nerved, acute, one-half the length 

 of the spikelet; second membranaceous, ovate, 5- to 7-nerved, acute, equaling the 

 spikelet; third like the second, but subtending a hyaline 2-nerved palet (this 

 lanceolate when in position); fourth (flowering) like the second and third, but 

 rather coriaceous, the nerves more obscure and seldom green. 



Flower hermaphrodite. Palet similar in shape and texture to its glume, but 

 2-nerved. Stamens 3, anthers linear, about 1 line long. Stigmas 2, linear. 



Grain f line long, somewhat obcompressed, quadrangular, oblong, very obtuse, 

 with an embryo three-fourths as long, when mature inclosed in the glumes and 

 bristles, the whole falling off together. 



PLATE VI; a, spikelet closed; 6, spikelet opened, the bristles removed. On the 

 right in b are the first glume, third glume and sterile palet, on the left the second 

 glume, flowering glume, and its palet. 



This grass will grow in very dry soil, and will produce a good crop of forage, 

 but is somewhat objectionable on account of the prickly seed-envelopes. 



