No. 4%. 
BUCHLOE DACTYLOIDES Engelmann. 
Plant usually dicecious, rarely monoecious, male and female flowers hetero- 
morphous. 
Culms low, 4 to 8 inches high, in dense matted tufts or patches, interlaced with 
stolons from a few inches to 2 feet long, with nodes usually 2 to 3 inches apart, 
these cate aa tufts of leaves and culms and often taking root. 
MALE 
pully slender, erect or decumbent at base, with 3 or 4 leaves. 
Leaves. Radical 4 to 6 inches long, 1 line or less wide, acuminate, sthoth or 
ciliate, those of the culm 4 to 2 inches long; upper sheaths often longer than the 
blades, loose; ligule and throat hairy. — 
Tafloreseence a terminal panicle of 2to 4 approximate, sessile or nearly sessile 
spikes, each } inch or less in length. 
Spikelets 5 to 10 or more in 2 ranks on one side of the rachis, crowded, each 2- 
or 3-flowered, about 2 lines long. 
Outer empty glumes unequal, 1-nerved or the lower nerveless and minute, the 
upper one-half to two-thirds as long as the spikelet, oblong, acute, minutely pub- 
escent; flowering glumes ovate, 2 lines long, membranaceous. 
Palet ovate, acuminate, as long as the flowering glumes, 2-nerved; stamens 
3; anthers 1 line long, linear. 
FEMALE PLANT. 
Flowering culms short, 2 to 3 inches high, 2 or 3 upper leaves clustered at the 
apex, their sheaths inclosing the base of the fertile flowers. 
Inflorescence consisting of 1 to 3, commonly 2, short, clustered spikes, each 3 to 
34 lines high, and of about 5 spikelets; rachis of the spike thickened. 
Spikelets very different from the male ones, being each 1-flowered and the parts 
much indurated and modified. 
Upper empty glwme indurated and cohering at the base with the enlarged 
rachis, becoming almost woody, divided at the apex into 3 or more rigid teeth, body 
convex externally and infolding the flower on its concave side; all the lower empty 
glumes (except that of the lowest spikelet) thin, ovate, acute, 1-nerved, scale-like, 
on the inner side of the spikelet; flowering glumes coriaceous, 3-nerved, 3-toothed 
at apex. 
Palet similar in texture to the flowering glume, 2-nerved, 2-toothed, inclosing 
the large ovary. 
PiatE XLVII; 1, male plant; 2, female plant; a, male spikelets; b, empty 
glumes of same; c, flowering glume of same; d, palet of same; A, female spikelet; 
B, upper empty glume; C, flowering glume; D, palet. 
This grass is extensively spread over all the region known as the Great Plains. 
It grows in extensive patches, spreading largely by means of its stolons (similar to 
those of Bermuda grass), which are sometimes 3 feet long, with joints every few 
inches, frequently rooting at the joints and forming new plants 
The flowers of the two sexes are usually on separate plants, but sometimes 
both kinds are found on different parts of the same plant. This and the grama 
grass (Bouteloua oligostachya) are the principal native grasses of the Plains, and 
afforded the principal subsistence of the herds of buffalo which formerly inhabited 
them. It is rapidly disappearing before the advance of settlements. 
