IIOKDE.E. 651 



flowered; empty glumes subulate, setaceous, as long as the florets 

 or longer or shorter; floral glume 8-10 mm. long, firm, smooth or 

 rough, mucronate, 5-nerved above. 



" This is perhaps the most strikingly variable grass upon the 

 coast, and would furnish several species were the characters con- 

 stant. At one extreme its stems, according to Mr. Bolander, are 

 13 ft. high and its roots do good service in retaining the soil of the 

 banks of streams. In these luxuriant forms the culm is as large as 

 the little finger, and the leaves, an inch or more broad, are over 8 

 ft. long. The spike is sometimes an incli and a half thick, dense 

 and continuous, with erect appressed branches 2 inches long, or it 

 is much lobed or sometimes interrupted, with the branches in sep- 

 arate clusters. In most of these large forms the florets are jiale 

 straw-coloi i, membranaceous, though in some they are greenish 

 and coriaceous, in which respect they approach the variety friii- 

 coidi's ; indeed no strict line can bo drawn to separate them, and 

 the variety is proposed for those forms that are liable to be taken 

 for some large Tn'ficuin. When it violates the diaracter of the 

 genus so far as to have but 1 spikelet at a joint, there is uotliing to 

 distinguish the specimens from Triticuni, tliough none have been 

 noticed in winch there were not somewhere upon the spike two 

 spikelets to the joint. The triticoid forms sometimes branch, and 

 Nuttall collected on Wapatoo Island a subpaniculate form, with 

 branches naked below." Thurb. S. AVats. liot. Calif. t» : Siij ( 1S80). 



Colorado, CuKsidy ; Montana, Anderxon (»; Wasliiiigtoii, Smid- 

 Icrg 437, Suksdorf WH^', California, Orruti 473: Lower California, 

 Orrntt. 



Coloratlo to Washington and California. 



7. E. ambiguuB V. & S. Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb. 1:280 

 (1893). 



A densely tufted, rigid perennial, 00-120 cm. high. Leaves of 

 the sterile shoots erect, the blades involute, .<mooth or scabrous, 

 30-45 cm. long. 2-4 mm. wide, leaves of the culm about 4 in num- 

 ber; ligule very short; blades 15-25 cm. long. Spikes erect. 8-13 

 cm. long; rachis scabrous. Spikelets 2 at each j«)iut or sometimes 

 «ingle at the extremities of the spike, scabrous, 5-9-flowered, 8-22 



