GENERA OF GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 71 



shaped body back of the upper floret, and the glumes and fertile 

 lemmas are conspicuously scarious. In many of the western species 

 the sterile lemmas are small and narrow, forming an inconspicuous 

 body at the top of the rachilla, and the glumes and fertile lemmas are 

 either broad or rather narrow with less conspicuous scarious margins. 

 In J/. imperfecta Trin., of California, there is but one fertile floret. 

 One group of species with narrow, scarcely flattened spikelets and 

 little-differentiated upper florets has been segregated as a section 

 under the name Bromelica. The awned species of the genus, M. aris- 

 tata Thurb. (fig. 32), M. smithii (Porter) Vasey, and M. purpu- 

 rascens (Torr.) Hitchc., belong to this group. The inflorescence of 

 Melica is usually narrow, a simple panicle or even a raceme, but in 

 M. smithii, M. geyeri Munro, and M. nitens it may be an open but 

 rather few-flowered panicle. The corms produced by many species 

 are characteristic and have suggested the name onion grass often 

 applied to them. The genus is distinguished from allied genera by 

 the scarious margins of the glumes and lemmas. The awned species 

 of the section Bromelica approach closely to Bromus. 



The species of Melica, commonly called melic grasses, are in gen- 

 eral excellent forage grasses. They are, however, not gregarious, 

 and do not ordinarily furnish any large proportion of the forage of 

 the ranges. The two most important species on the ranges are M. 

 lella Piper and M. spectabilis Scribn. They have broad spikelets, 

 bulbous bases, and narrow panicles, the first with erect pedicels, the 

 second with slender recurved pedicels. 



25. ANTHOCHLOA Nees. 



Spikelets few-flowered, subsessile, on a simple axis and imbricate, 

 the rachilla disarticulating above the glumes and between the florets ; 

 glumes (in our species) wanting; lemmas thin-membranaceous, flabel- 

 liform, whitish, petallike, many nerved; palea narrower than the 

 lemma, hyaline. 



Low annuals or perennials, with close, spikes. Species three ; two 

 in the Andes, one in California. 



Type species : Anthochloa lepidiila Nees. 



Anthochloa Nees; Meyen, Reise urn Erde 2: 14. 1835. One species men- 

 tioned. The description is meager and scarcely constitutes technical publica- 

 tion. It is as follows : " Wir sammelten hier ein sehr kleines aber ausserst 

 schones Gras, das die neue Gattung Anthochloa bildet und von Herrn Nees v. 

 Esenbeck Anthochloa lepickula genannt worden ist (Anthochloa genus proximum 

 Melicae, differt glumis brevioribus, valvula superior! quadrifida ! ) ." The genus 

 is first described by Endlicher 1 but no species is mentioned. Remy 2 describes 

 the genus and one species (A. rupestris). 



Stapfia Davy, Erythea 6: 110, pi. 3, 1898, not Stapfia Chodat, 1897. One 

 species described, S. colusa-na. 



Neostapfia Davy, Erythea 7 : 43. 1899. A new name for Stapfia Davy. 



Davyella Hack., Oesterr. Bot. Zeitschr. 49 : 133. 1899. A new name proposed 

 for Stapfia Davy, not Chodat. 



1 Gen. PI. 99. 1836. a Ann. Sci. Nat. Bot. III. 6:347. 1846. 



