No. 12. 
AEGOPOGON GEMINIFLORUS H. B. K.* 
Plant annual. 
Culms procumbent and branching at the base, or even creeping and rooting at 
the lower nodes; erect parts about 1 foot high, very slender, glabrous. 
Leaves of the stem 3 to 6; sheaths slender, glabrous, usually not quite con- 
tiguous; blade $ to 1 line broad, + inch long, flat, flaccid, glabrous ; ligule con- 
spicuous, about 1 line long, the apex short-lacerate. 
nflorescence racemose ; spikelets in umbels of 3, one nearly sessile ; umbels 
on short, slender, scabrous peduncles, usually turned to one side, in a raceme 14 
to 3 inches long; rachis slender, scabrous. 
Spikelets lanceolate, acute, excluding the awns about 2 lines long, pedicelled 
ones a little smaller. | 
Glumes 3; first and second similar, 1-nerved, made up of a narrow body ex- 
current into an awn, and 2 narrow, lateral, membranaceous, from truncate to 
acuminate wings (one shorter than the other); third (flowering) lanceolate, 
3-nerved, each nerve excurrent into an awn, middle one (shorter in oe pedicelled 
spikelets) nearly as long as the spikelet, lateral ones minute. - 
Flower single, hermaphrodite. Palet membranaceous, lanceolate, 2-nerved, 
each nerve excurrent into a minute tooth. Stamens 3, anthers about ? line long, 
linear, the cells joined only at the middle. Stigmas short, cylindrical. 
; Grain not seen, but probably inclosed in the spikelets, the umbel of 3 drop- 
ping off together. 
PLATE XII; lower figure, cluster of three spikelets; upper figure, spikelet 
opened to show the parts. The lateral lobes of the first and second glumes are 
broader and usually less acute than in the figure. -In the upper figure the position 
of the first glumes is reversed, and in both figures the stamens and pistils are 
omitt 
* This description was made from a single set of specimens cultivated from Mexican seed. ey 
are taken to be the typical form of H. B. K. Several forms whose specific relationships have not 
all been well worked out occur in the southwestern United States and Mexico, and none of them, 
although they may prove to be varieties of this species, were noted in writing the description. 
