No. 26. 

 SCHEDONNARDUS TEXANUS Steud. (Lepturus paniculatus Nutt.) 



Plant a low straggling annual. 



Culm tufted and branching at base, spreading, slender, terete, or compressed, 

 hollow, minutely pubescent. 



Leaves; radical and from radical shoots, numerous, folded, spirally twisted, 

 with short, cartilaginous points; of culm 1 or 2 equaled or exceeded by those of 

 the base; sheaths loose, compressed, open above; blades flat or folded, spirally 

 twisted, smooth, 2 to 3 inches long; ligule ovate, acute, lacerate, decurrent in sca- 

 rious margins down the sheath. 



Inflorescence a loose racemose panicle, the spikelets sessile and appressed in 

 excavations in the horizontally spreading branches, which are 1 to 4 inches long, 

 alternate and distant on the triangular hispid rachis. 



Spikelets 1-flowered, narrow, l to 2 lines long; first glume lanceolate, some- 

 times toothed on the margin, scarious-margined, line long, sometimes 1 sided, 1 

 prominent hispid nerve, sometimes excurrent in an awn one-half as long as the glume; 

 second glume same but nearly twice as large; floral glume narrowly lanceolate, 

 acute or mucronulate, 3-nerved, rounded on back, hispid, on the inidnerve, slightly 

 pubescent at base, l lines long; palet ovate, obtuse, or slightly toothed, round on 

 back, hyaline, 2-nerved, li to li lines long. 



Grain dark reddish, translucent-amber, with darker oblique chit extending 

 one-third way from base, narrowly cylindrical, 1 line long, falling free or with 

 disarticulate branch. 



PLATE XXVI; a, branch with spikelets in position; b, spikelet; c, second 

 empty glume; d, first empty glume; e, palet; /, floral glume. 



Texas to Arizona, northward to Dakota and British America. 



