STUDIES IN THE GRAMINEAE. 
VIII. MUNROA SQUARROSA (Nutt.) Torr.’ 
THEO. Horm. 
(WITH TWELVE FIGURES) 
Ir often happens that plants which are common and easily avail- 
able are the least studied. Being frequently collected and repre- 
sented in herbaria by almost numberless specimens, such plants 
become so familiar “by name” that botanists as a rule do not take 
the pains to examine them with much interest or care. 
The steady increase in the publication of cheap systematic works 
in this country is hardly beneficial to the study of taxonomic botany. 
The danger lies in the fact that authors of such works seldom take 
the time to reexamine the plants or to compare them with diagnoses 
of earlier date. It is no surprise, therefore, to discover points of 
great importance mentioned in earlier diagnoses which have been 
totally overlooked or ignored in works of a more recent date. As a 
matter of fact, the older botanists were more careful in examining 
and describing their plants, and their diagnoses, brief as they may 
be, often allude to certain characters which are well worthy of 
notice. A case in point may be illustrated by Munroa, and in select- 
ing this genus as the subject of the present paper, it is with the inten- 
tion of showing that the plant was actually better understood formerly 
than it is now, and that it possesses certain morphological and histo- 
logical characters which have not been observed hitherto and which 
may be of some importance to future research. 
Munroa was first described as a species of Crypsis—C. squarrosa— 
by Nurrarz, but Torrey corrected the mistake and established the 
genus.? At that time it was considered as belonging to the HORDEAE, 
while it is now generally placed among the Festucear. As described 
by Torrey, the plant is readily recognized, and both the singular 
«Earlier papers were published in this journal as follows: I, June 1891; I, 
August, 1891; III, October 1891; IV, November 1892; V, August 1895; VI, June 
1896; VII, November 1896. 
2 Pacific R. R. Rep. 4:158. 1856. 
1905] 123 
