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



Perennial, usually low grasses, with creeping stolons or rhizomes, 

 short blades, and several slender spikes digitate at the summit of 

 the upright flowering stems. Species six, of which three are Aus- 

 tralian, one species widely dis- 

 tributed in the warmer regions 

 of the globe. 



Type species: Panicum dacty- 

 lon L. 



Capriola Adans., Fam. PI. 2: 31, 

 532. 1763. The genera are indi- 

 cated and distinguished by Aclanson 

 in a much abbreviated and often un- 

 satisfactory manner. The tabular 

 arrangement of the genera of Phal- 

 arides, his first section of the grass 

 family or Gramina, includes Cap- 



FIG. 105. Bermuda grass, Capriola dactylon. Plant, 



floret, X 5. 



X 2 ; spikelet and two views of 



riola, with the following diagnosis, interpreting the table : Summit of leaf sheath 

 hairy ; flowers in digitate spikes ; glumes laterally compressed ; lemma awn less. 

 In the index there is given as a synonym under Capriola, " Gramen dactylon 

 Offic." The last phrase appears in the first edition of the Species Plantarum 1 

 in the synonymy under Panicum dactylon as " Gramen dactylon, radice repente. 

 s. officinarum. Scheuch. gram. 104," thus connecting Capriola Adans. with 

 Panicum dactylon. 



Cynodon Rich. ; Pers., Syn. PI. 1: 85. 1805. Only one species described, C. dac- 

 tylon, based on Panicum dactylon L. 



The only species in Xofth America is Capriola dactylon (L.) 

 Kuntze (fig. 105), commonly known as Bermuda grass. This is a 



., Sp. PL 58. 1753. 



