GENEKA OF GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 227 



species of Paspalum in which both glumes are wanting, the third, to which the 

 generic description less aptly applies, is a species of Reimarochloa. Reimaria 

 Candida is taken as the type. 



Cymatochloa Schlecht, Bot. Zeit. 12 : 817, 821. 1854. Two names, " C. fluir 

 tans (Ceresia fluitaus Ell.)" and " C. repens (Paspalum repens Berg.)" are 

 given. Both names apply to the same species, Paspalum repens Berg. 



Dimorphostachys Fourn., Compt Rend. Acad. Sci. (Paris) 80: 441. 1875. 

 The type is Panicum monostachyum H. B. K., the first of four species men- 

 tioned. 



Paspalum is closely allied to Panicum, differing chiefly in the 

 strictly racemose inflorescence and the plano-convex spikelets in 

 which the first glume is wanting. In a few species (section Dimor- 

 phostachys, in Paspalum distichum and in P. bifidum (Bertol.) 

 Nash) the first glume is present on at least a part of the spikelets. 

 In P. pulchellum Kunth of tropical America and a few other species 

 both glumes are wanting. 



In spite of the large number of species in this genus, very few 

 are of economic importance. Most of the species make a sparse 

 growth in moist pine barrens and old fields and are not grazed to 

 any extent. A few species inhabiting meadows and savannas fur- 

 nish a limited amount of forage. Among these may be mentioned 

 P. laeve Michx. (fig. 137) and P. ciliatifolium Michx., and the allies 

 of these species. Paspalum laeve, with 2 or 3 racemes and spikelets 

 2.5 mm. long, is common from Maryland to Florida and Texas. 

 Paspalum ciliatifolium and its allies, besides the one to few slender 

 racemes on the main culm, have several naked branches from the 

 upper sheaths, each branch usually bearing a single raceme. 



Paspalum distichum L., with creeping stolons and racemes in 

 pairs at the summit of the culms, is widely distributed along muddy 

 coasts and ditch banks from Virginia to Florida and thence across 

 the continent to California and Washington. Where abundant it 

 furnishes some forage. 



Paspalum dilatatum Poir. has been tried as a forage grass in the 

 Southern States, where it has been cultivated under the name of 

 water grass. It has little to recommend it here, but in the Hawaiian 

 Islands it gives much promise as a pasture grass. In tropical Amer- 

 ica species of Paspalum form an important element in the grazing 

 land of the savannas, P. notatum Fliigge being one of the most 

 abundant. 



118. PANICUM L. 



Spikelets more or less compressed dorsiventrally, arranged in open 

 or compact panicles, rarely racemes; glumes 2, herbaceous, nerved, 

 usually very unequal, the first often minute, the second typically 

 equaling the sterile lemma, the latter of the same texture and simu- 

 lating a third glume, bearing in its axil a membranaceous or hyaline 

 palea and sometimes a staminate flower, the palea rarely wanting; 



