IN TENNESSEE. 



233 



Boutelona. 



BOUTELOUA, Lagasca.--(.flf*fc& Grass.) 



Spikelets crowded and closely sessile 

 in two rows on one side of a flattened 

 rhachis, comprising one perfect flower 

 below and one or more sterile or rudi- 

 mentary flowers. Glumes convex keel- 

 ed, the lower one shorter. Perfect flow- 

 er with the 3 -nerved lower palet 8- 

 toothed, or cleft at the apex, the 2-nerv- 

 ed upper palet 2-toothed ; the teeth, at 

 least of the former, pointed or subulate, 

 awned. Stamens 3, anthers orange col- 

 ored or red. 



A portion of the compound spike of the natural size, (1); and a spike- 

 let displayed and magnified, (2); the flowers raised out of the glumes. 



BOUTELOUA CURTIPENDULA, Gray.~(lZbrse Shoe Grass). 

 Culms tufted from a perennial root stalk which spreads in a semi-circu- 

 lar form like a horse-shoe. Leaves narrow, spikes one-half inch or les* 

 in length, nearly sessile. Flowers scabrous. It grows abundantly in 

 the pine barrens of Middle Tennessee, (Lavergne, Smyrna), and is one 

 of the best pasture grasses. 



MUHLENBERGIA, Schreb.--(Drop-seed Grass.) 



Spikelets one-flowered, in contracted or rarely in 

 open panicles. Glumes mostly ovate, acute or brist- 

 ly pointed, persistent ; the lower rather smaller or 

 minute. Flower very short, stalked or sessile in the 

 glumes ; the palets usually minutely bearded at the 

 base, herbaceous, deciduous with the enclosed grain, 

 often equal, the lower 3 -nerved, mucronate or awned 

 at the apex. Stamens three. 



The most species of this genus look like a diminu- 

 tive decumbent cane, from the dry, somewhat stiff 

 aspect of the leaves and the hard and polished, really 

 cane-like condition of the stems. 



A magnified closed spikelet of Muhlenbergia syl- 

 vatica, (1); the same with the open flower raised out 

 of the glumes, (3); its minute and unequal glumet 

 more magnified, (4); and an open spikelet of the 

 same, (5). 



