No. 1. 2 
ERIOCHLOA SERICEA Munro. 
Roots long, unbranched, but giving off a few fibrille. 
Culms tufted, simple, $ to 3 feet high, stiffly erect, slender, striate, short- 
villous at the nodes and sparingly minutely hairy where not sheathed. 
Radical leaves numerous, 6 to 12 inches long, erect, flat or involute, striate, 
minutely pubescent or glabrous, 4 to 1 line broad, the sheaths free. Cauline 
leaves 3 or 4; sheaths contiguous or nearly so, striate, minutely pubescent or gla- 
brous, villous at the apex; ligule a row of dense straight hairs; blades like 
those of the root-leaves, spreading, 3 to 9 inches long, uppermost often shorter. 
Inflorescence a racemose compound spike, the peduncle usually exserted from 
the uppermost sheath; axis minutely pubescent; spikes 4 to 7, sessile or the lower 
short-peduncled, erect, contiguous, or nearly so, ¢ to 14 inches long. 
Spikelets elliptical-oblong, acute, depressed, 14 to 2 lines long, imbricated (one- 
half their length) in 2 rows along the outer side of the flat rachis of the spike, 
each sessile on an annular swelling of the apex of a short, long-villous pedicel 
(about as broad as long), hairs equaling the spikelet. 
Glumes 3; outer 2 equal, membranaceous, inclosing the rest of the spikelet, 
ovate, obldng, acute, 5-nerved, villous without; flowering glume glabrous, thick- 
ened-coriaceous, minutely rugose, elliptical-oblong and acute, rounded on the 
back. 
Flower single, hermaphrodite. Palet similar in texture to the flowering 
glume, 2-nerved, flat on the back. Stamens 3, the anthers two-thirds as long as 
the palet. Stigmas 2, fimbriate, purple, nearly one-half the length of the palet, 
on slender styles. 
PiatTE I; a, spikelet opened so as to show the glumes, palet, pistil, and sta- 
mens. In the figure the flowering glume is too much narrowed toward the apex, 
the palet is not represented as fiat on the back, and the stigmas and anthers are 
too short. 
This species seems to be principally confined to western Texas and New Mex- 
ico, extending northward into the Indian Territory. It affords a considerable 
quantity of foliage, is acre and should be tried with reference to its agri- 
cultural value, 
