No. 23. 
CHLORIS SWARTZIANA Dill. (Chloris petrea Swz. non. Thunb.) 
(Schultesia petreea Spreng.) (? Eustachys petra Desv.) 
Plant perennial, from short rootstock, light green or more or less purplish 
throughout. 
Culm erect, or genticulate and spreading below, frequently branched, flatly 
no stn smooth, 1 to 2 feet tall. 
s; radical, with closely compressed, smooth, equitant, divergent sheaths,. 
Lea 
and flat or folded blades, round-pointed, scabrous on the edge, 2 lines wide, 4 to 
10 inches long; of stem 3 to 5, sometimes opposite; sheaths compressed, loose, 
mooth, shorter than internodes; lower blades like those of radical leaves but 
shorter, and upper ones reduced to nearly none; ligule a minute, ciliate, membrana- 
ceous fringe. 
Inflorescence a digitate cluster of 3 to 6 sessile, linear, erect, slightly spreading 
spikes, 2 to 3 inches long, bearing the crowded sessile spikelets in two rows on one 
side of the slender, scabrid rachis. 
Spikelets 2-flowered, upper flower sterile; first glume broadly ovate-acute, 
smooth, 1-nerved, scarious, + line long; second glume obovate, 2 minutely toothed 
lobes at apex and a short hispid awn formed by the excurrent nerve, hispid on back, 
# to 1 line long; floral glume, rotund, broadly acute, or rounded and mucronate, 
coriaceous, oe ciliate, pubescent on the lower two-thirds of the single nerve, 
smooth above; palet ovate-lanceolate, convex, obscurely 2-nerved, 1 line long; ster- 
ile flower a broadiy ovate, truncate ene folded triangular, brown, 4 line long. 
Grain translucent, creamy-white, triangular, 4 line long, falling with spikelet 
intact except the empty glumes which are left on the rachis. 
PuatTE XXIII; a, spikelet; b, floral glume, sterile flower, stamens and stigmas; 
e, second empty glume; d, first empty glume; palet not shown. 
Low grounds near the Gulf, from Florida westward to Texas. 
waka 
