No. 25. 
MUHLENBERGIA DISTICHOPHYLLA Kunth. 
Rootstock not seen. Roots strong, branching rather early. 
Culms tufted, erect, 24 to 4 feet high, simple, glabrous, glaucous where not 
sheathed, stout, rigid. 
Leaves of the stem 2 to 4; sheaths long, usually imbricated, not hairy, commonly 
minutely roughened; blade 3 to 12 inches long, about 1 line wide, flat and keeled 
or conduplicate, harsh, scabrous on the midrib and margins, glaucous green; ligule 
membranaceous, narrow, long-acuminate, sometimes # inch long, fragile. Root 
leaves with sheaths mostly loose and compressed; sheaths sometimes 9 inches long, 
and the entire leaf exceeding 3 feet. 
Inflorescence paniculate. Panicle 8 to 18 inches long, erect, contracted; 
branches numerous, seldom exceeding 3 inches, scabrous as well as the rachis. 
Spikelets polygamous, very numerous, borne singly on slender scabrous pedicels, 
about 1 line long, linear-oblong, obtuse or acute. 
Glumes 3; first and second nearly equal, membranaceous, tawny, often purple at 
the base, about 1 line long, slightly scabrous on the back, acute, or sometimes obtuse 
and erose at the apex, l-nerved, rarely with 2 rudimentary lateral nerves; third 
(flowering) similar to the others, densely pilose below, with a strong middle nerve 
and usually 2 indistinct ones on either side; middle nerve in the hermaphrodite 
spikelets produced, from below the apex of the glume, into a slender, scabrous, 
terete, somewhat flexuous, purple awn 4 to 6 lines long; glume of the staminate 
spikelets awnless. 
Flowers single in the spikelets. Palet of staminate flower thin, membranaceous, 
lanceolate, with 2 very slender approximate nerves, slightly hairy on the back; 
stamens 3, anthers linear, nearly as long as the spikelets. Palet of hermaphrodite 
flower similar to the other; stamens 3, anthers linear, nearly as long as the spike- 
let; ovary globular, styles long, stamens cylindrical. 
Grain linear-oblong, brown, inclosed in the glume and palet; rachilla disarticu- 
lating above the second glume. 
PLATE XXV; 1,male plant; 2, hemaphrodite plant; a, staminate spikelet; 6, 
first and second glumes of the same; c, third (flowering) glume, palet, and stamens 
of the same; f, hermaphrodite flower; d, first and second glumes of the same; e, 
third (flowering) glume, palet, and stigmas of the same. In the hermaphrodite 
flower the stamens are not shown. 
A coarse, strongly rooted, perennial grass, perhaps having agricultural value. 
It is one of the grasses called saccato. ; 
