No. 14. 
TRAGUS RACEMOSUS Hall. 
Plant annual. 
Roots very slender. 
Stem branching and procumbent at the base, sometimes rooting at the lower 
nodes, glabrous, 15 inches or less in height; depauperate plants sometimes simple, 
erect, and but 2 to 3 inches high. 
_ Leaves of the stem 3 to 6; sheaths usually not contiguous, glabrous, often some- 
what swollen; blade 1 to 2 lines broad, 1 to 2 inches long, or the uppermost nearly 
obsolete, glabrous except the coarsely ciliate-toothed margins, thick, pale green; 
ligule a dense row of short hairs. 
Inflorescence a dense cylindrical spike of clusters of spikelets 24 to 34 lines 
thick, 1 to 4 inches long, frequently sheathed at the base, never long-peduncled; 
clusters nearly sessile, arranged singly on all sides of the terete minutely pubescent 
rachis. 
Spikelets 2 to 3 in each cluster, closely spiked (backs together) on a short ra- 
chis; uppermost commonly reduced to a single echinate glume; lowest and usu- 
ally the middle one perfect; rachis sometimes produced as a rudiment above the 
base of the upper flower. 
Glumes 3; first ovate, small, thin, hyaline, nerveless; second thick, ovate to 
lanceolate, acute, the back ridged with several (commonly 5 to 7) nerves converg- 
ing at the apex and beset with hooked spines; third (flowering) lanceolate, acute, 
mucronate-awned, slightly coriaceous, glabrous, 3-nerved. 
Flower single, hermaphrodite. Palet lanceolate, membranaceous, 2-nerved. 
Stamens 3; anthers short, oblong; stigmas cylindrical, slender. 
Grain light-brown, oblanceolate-oblong, slightly obcompressed,apiculate,short- 
stipitate, about 4 line long. 
PuLaTE XIV; a, cluster of two spikelets opened to show the parts. The spike- 
let on the right shows the first glume (very small), the second glume (echinate), 
the flowering glume and its palet, and between them an organ probably meant to 
represent an anther. The spikelet to the left shows the same parts except the 
first glume which is replaced by the rudimentary prolongation of the rachis. The 
second spikelet should be raised on a slight prolongation of the rachis. 
This is a widely distributed semi-tropical grass, not of economic value. 
