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



at the base of the culms. Panicum texanum Buckl., Texas millet, 

 Colorado grass, is an annual rather weedy grass of Texas that has 

 been utilized for hay. It has been called Colorado grass because it 

 grows in the valley of the Colorado River. Panicwn dichotomi- 

 florum Michx. is a smooth, annual, much-branched, rather succulent 

 weed, common in the eastern United States in the autumn. The 

 first glume is very short and truncate. Panicum capillare L. (fig. 

 140), old- witch grass, is an annual weed, with hirsute sheaths and a 

 relatively large open capillary panicle with small spikelets. At 

 maturity the panicle breaks away and is blown about by the wind 

 as a tumble grass. Panicum geminatum Forsk. (fig. 141), a common 

 tropical species, extends into Florida and Texas. 



Besides the two subgenera there are a few species that can not be 

 included in true Panicum. Two of these within our range are of 

 some importance. Panicum obtuswn H. B. K. (fig. 142), a forage 

 grass of the Southwest, producing long wiry stolons with bearded, 

 swollen nodes, and short, erect, fertile culms with narrow panicles of 

 obtuse spikelets, is called grapevine mesquite, because of the long, 

 tough stolons, and adobe grass, because it is found on slightly alka- 

 line soil. This species differs from Eupanicum in the long first 

 glume and the racemose branches of the inflorescence. Panicum 

 kemitomon Schult., maiden cane, is found in moist soil, often in 

 the water, from Texas to Florida and Delaware near the coast. It 

 produces extensively creeping rhizomes and numerous sterile shoots. 

 The panicle is narrow, with short appressed branches. On account 

 of the rhizomes it becomes a troublesome weed in cultivated soil, 

 especially in Florida. This species differs from Eupanicum in the 

 less chartaceous fruit with the palea free at the tip. The seeds of 

 Panicum sonorum Beal are used for food by the Cocopa Indians. 



See Williams, U. S. Dept. Agr., Farmers' Bull. 101, 1899; Scrib- 

 ner, U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Agrost. Bull. 20, fig. 23, 1900; Hitch- 

 cock and Chase, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 15, 1910. The last work 

 is a revision of the genus Panicum in North America and gives full 

 descriptions and synonymy of all the species. 



119. LASIACIS (Griseb.) Hitchc. 



Spikelets subglobose, placed obliquely on their pedicels ; first glume 

 broad, somewhat inflated-ventricose, usually not over one-third the 

 length of the spikelet, several-nerved; second glume and sterile 

 lemma about equal, broad, abruptly apiculate, papery-chartaceous, 

 shining, many-nerved, glabrous, or lanose at the apex only, the lemma 

 inclosing a membranaceous palea and sometimes a staminate flower ; 

 fertile lemma white, bony-indurate, obovoid, obtuse, this and the 

 palea of the same texture, bearing at the apex in a slight crateriform 



