No. 2. 
PANICUM BULBOSUM 12 gee tae 
Rootstock creeping, slightly branching, the yearly growth short (commonly 
+ inch), base of the culm becoming enlarged into a corm 2 to 2 inch long, or some- 
times nearly wanting. Roots simple, strong. 
Culms erect, single or few together in a loose clump, slender or stout (some- 
times 4 inch thick), simple, glabrous, glaucous at the nodes. 
Leaves with striate blades 1 to 4 lines broad. Radical few, commoply 1 to 2 
feet long; sheath elongated, loose, glabrous or the margins sometimes ciliate; blade 
glabrous or very sparingly hirsute at the base, slender-acuminate at the apex; 
ligule short, fimbriate. Sheaths of the stem 2 to 4, not contiguous, sheathing, 
glabrous; blades as in the radical leaves. 
Inflorescence an exsert-pedunculate, usually open panicle 9 to 20 inches long; 
main axis glabrous or occasionally scabrous, pubescent at the forks; spikelets 
borrie singly on short, scabrous pedicels, or sometimes sessile. 
Spikelets 14 to 2 lines long, nearly terete, elliptical-lanceolate to oblong, 
bluntly acute. 
Glumes 4, glabrous, membranaceous, purple or pale green; 2 lower empty; 
first broadly ovate, acute, 3- to 7-nerved, frequently unsymmetrically, one-third to 
one-half the length of the spikelet® second as long as the spikelet, oblong, bluntly 
acute, 5- to 7-nerved. 
Flowers 2, Lower staminate; glume like the second empty glume; palet hyaline, 
thin-membranaceous, 2-nerved. Upper flower hermaphrodite; glume coriaceous, 
minutely corrugated, obsoletely few-nerved, acute; palet 2-nerved, similar in text- 
ure to the glume; stamens 3; styles long. 
PuaATE IT; a, three spikelets enlarged; b, spikelet opened to show the parts; 
c, portion of the base of the culm, and the corm of the preceding year. On the 
left, in b, in order from below, are the lower empty glume, first flowering glume, and 
palet of the staminate flower, on the right the second empty glume, the second 
flowering glume, and to the left of the stamens and pistil the palet of the fertile 
flower. 
This grass should be one of great agricultural value. Its bulbous rootstocks 
contain a store of moisture which enables it to endurea protracted drought, and as 
it grows of large size it would produce a great amount of fodder. 
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