POACEAE. 37 



awn short or wanting; fourth scale, in side view, obovate-elliptic, rounded at 

 the apex, awnless. 



Waste and cultivated lands, Great Bahama, Abaco, North Bimini, Andros, New 

 Providence, Hog Island, Eleuthera, Cat Island, Watling's Island, Acklin's Island, 

 Crooked Island, Long Cay, Mariguana, Grand Caicos, Little Ambergris Cay, Grand 

 Turk, Inagua, Salt Key, and Anguilla Isles : Bermuda ; North Carolina to Florida 

 and Texas ; Cuba ; Hispaniola ; Porto Rico ; Jamaica ; tropical continental America. 

 WEST INDIAN GRASS. FINGER-GRASS. 



26. BOUTELOUA Lag. Varied. Cienc. 2*: 134. 1805. 



Annual or perennial grasses with flat or convolute leaves and numerous 

 spikelets in few one-sided spikes. Spikelets 1-2-flowered, arranged in two 

 rows on one side of a flat rachis, the rachilla extended beyond the base of the 

 flowers, bearing 1-3 awns and 1-3 rudimentary scales. Two lower scales 

 empty, acute, keeled; flowering scale broader, 3-toothed, the teeth awn-pointed 

 or awned; palet hyaline, entire or 2-toothed. Stamens 3. Styles distinct. 

 Stigmas plumose. Grain oblong, free. [In honor of Claudius Boutelou, a 

 Spanish botanist.] About 30 species, particularly numerous in Mexico and in 

 the southwestern United States. Type species: Bouteloua racemosa Lag. 



1. Bouteloua americana (L.) Scribn. Proc. Phila. Acad. 1891: 306. 1892. 



Aristida americana L. Syst. Nat. ed. 10, 879. 1759. 



Bouteloua litigiosa Lag. Gen. & Sp. Nov. 5. 1816. 



Perennial, tufted. Culms. wiry, compressed, decumbent or ascending, 7 dm." 

 long or less, often much branched, glabrous. Leaves involute-margined, hairy 

 near the base, 6-10 cm. long, 2 mm. wide or less; raceme open, composed of 

 several spike-like branches 2-3 cm. long; spikelets about 7 on each spike, ap- 

 pressed; second flower rudimentary, with 3 awns of about equal length. 



Inagua : Cuba to Tortola and Barbados ; Jamaica ; northern South America 

 to Panama. MESQUITE-GRASS. 



27. ELEUSINE Gaertn. Fruct. & Sem. 1: 7. 1788. 



Tufted annual or perennial grasses, with flat leaves and spicate inflores- 

 cence, the spikes digitate or close together at the summit of the culm. Spike- 

 lets several-flowered, sessile, closely imbricated in two rows on one side of the 

 rachis, which is not extended beyond them; flowers perfect or the upper 

 staminate. Scales compressed, keeled; the 2 lower empty; the others subtend- 

 ing flowers, or the upper empty. Stamens 3. Styles distinct. Stigmas plu- 

 mose. Grain loosely enclosed in the scale and palet. [From the Greek name 

 of the town where Ceres was worshipped.] Species 6, natives of the Old World. 

 Type species: Cynosurus coracana L. 



1. Eleusine indica (L.) Gaertn. Fruct. & Sem. 1 : 8. 1788. 



Cynosurus indicus L. Sp. PI. 72. 1753. 



Andropogon repens Sehoepf, Reise 2: 493. 1788. 



Culms 1.5-6 dm. tall, tufted, erect, or decumbent at the base. Sheaths 

 loose, overlapping and often short and crowded at the base of the culm, glab- 

 rous or sometimes sparingly villous; leaves 7.5-30 cm. long, 2-6 mm. wide, 

 smooth or scabrous; spikes 2-10, 2.5-7.5 cm. long, whorled or approximate at 

 the summit of the culm or one or two sometimes distant ; spikelets 3-6-flowered, 

 3-4 mm. long; scales acute, minutely scabrous on the keel, the first 1-nerved, 

 the second 3-7-nerved, the others 3 5-nerved. 



Waste places, Abaco, New Providence, Eleuthera, Fortune Island, Grand Turk, 

 Rum Cay, and Inagua : Bermuda ; common as a weed in all warm temperate and 

 tropical regions. WIRE-GRASS. 



