MACLOSKIE I GRAMINE^E. 2 I J 



47. MELICA Linn. 



Erect perennials, often with corms, and usually soft flat leaves. Panicle 

 contracted or lax; spikelets 2-several-flowered ; their rachilla produced 

 and bearing rudimentary flowers. Empty glumes 2, awnless, 3-5- or 

 more-nerved ; flowering-glumes larger, rounded, y-13-nerved, sometimes 

 terminally awned. Palece broad but shorter. Grain oblong, dorsally 

 flattened, enclosed but free. 



Species 30, in temperate regions (not known in Austral.). 



i. M. MACRA Nees. 



Erect, over 60 cm. tall, slender; leaves strict, very rough, the lower 

 linear-plicate, the upper plane, 12 cm. by 2 mm. Panicle compound, 

 secund, its rays racemose. Spikelet 3-flowered, lanceolate, nodding. 

 Ghimes subequal, oblong, convolute, 5- and y-nerved. 



(Montevideo and about Bahia. Blanca; the pasto-bravo, or wicked 

 grass. J. Ball.) N. Patagon. 



(M. magellanica T)esv.=>Hierochloe redo/ens.] 



2. M. PAPILIONACEA Linn. 



Panicle virgate. Pedicels slender, branching below, longer than the 

 spikelets. Lower glume very large, colored, obovate, obtuse, much ex- 

 ceeding the upper. Flowers 2 and a rudiment ; floral glume oblong, 

 i6-nerved, apex scarious-colored. 

 (Brazil) ; N. Patagon. 



3. M. VIOLACEA Cav. 



Rhizome bulbiferous. Culms flagelliform, branching, 15-60 cm. tall. 

 Panicle linear, rigid, 5-20 cm. long, with 1-7 unilateral appressed 

 branches; spikelets 2-flowered with i or 2 imperfect flowers. Lowest 

 glume the largest, obovate-rounded, 8-10 mm. long, violet, apex whitish; 

 the upper shorter and narrow. 



(Common about Bahia Blanca.) N. Patagon. " Nahuel-Catschu, the 

 Araucanian name, refers to the puma crouching in it." (J. Ball.) 



48. DISTICHLIS Raf. 



Creeping grass with rigid convolute leaves and diczdous flowers; mostly 

 maritime. Spikelets compressed, 6-i6-flowered, in a narrow panicle, 

 sometimes with only 2 or 3 spikelets. Rachilla glabrous, articulate be- 



