64 BULLETIN 772, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



20. PHRAGMITES Adans., the reeds. 



Spikelets several-flowered, the rachilla clothed with long silky hairs, 

 disarticulating above the glumes and at the base of each joint between 

 the florets, the lowest floret staminate or neuter ; glumes 3-nerved, or 

 the upper 5-nerved, lanceolate, acute, unequal, the first about half 

 as long as the upper, the second shorter than the florets; lemmas 

 narrow, long-acuminate, glabrous, 3-nerved, the florets successively 

 smaller, the summits of all about equal ; palea much shorter than the 

 lemma. 



Perennial reeds, with broad, flat linear blades and large terminal 

 panicles. Species three, one in Asia, one in Argentina, and one cos- 

 mopolitan. 



Type species: Arundo phragmites L. 



Phragmites Adans., Fam. PI. 2: 34, 559. 1763. Adanson cites "Arundo 

 Scheuz. 161," which Linnasus also cites under Arundo phragmites. Adanson 

 cites besides four other pre-Linnsean references, two of them queried. The other 

 two, which may refer to sugar cane or to sorghum, are to be excluded because 

 the few generic characters given, especially that the spikelets have several per- 

 fect flowers, do not at all apply to them, but do apply to Arundo phragmites. 

 Trinius * publishes Phragmites as a new genus based on Arundo phragmites L., 

 changing the specific name to P. communis. 



Trichoon Roth, Archiv Bot. Roemer I 3 : 37. 1798. Based on Arundo karka 

 Retz., an East Indian species of Phragmites. 



Miphragtes Nieuwl., Amer. Midi. Nat. 3: 332. 1914. The name suggested for 

 Phragmites Trin. not Phragmites Adans. in case Trichoon Roth and Oxyanthe 

 Steud., to each of which Nieuwland transfers the specific name " Phragmites," 

 should not "be applicable." 



Our single species Phragmites communis Trin. (P. phragmites (L.) 

 Karst.) (fig. 27) is a tall reed with creeping rhizomes, leaves about 

 an inch broad, and panicles commonly a foot long. It grows in 

 marshes, around springs, and along lakes and streams throughout the 

 United States. Besides the rhizomes it produces extensively creep- 

 ing leafy stolons. In the Southwest this species, in common with 

 Arundo donax, is called by the Mexican name carrizo and is used for 

 lattices in the construction of adobe huts. The stems were used by 

 the Indians for the shafts of arrows, and in Mexico and Arizona for 

 mats and screens. 



21. DACTYLIS L. 



Spikelets few-flowered, compressed, finally disarticulating between 

 the florets, nearly sessile in dense one-sided fascicles, these borne at 

 the ends of the few branches of a panicle ; glumes unequal, carinate, 

 acute, hispid-ciliate on the keel; lemmas compressed-keeled, mucro- 

 nate, 5-nerved, ciliate on the keel. 



Perennials, with flat blades and fascicled spikelets. Species two 

 or three, in Eurasia ; one, Dactylis glomerata, a native of Europe, cul- 

 tivated and naturalized in the United States. 



1 Fund. Agrost. 134. 1820. 



