No. 7%. 
ARISTIDA PURPUREA Nutt. 
Plant annual or short lived perennial, often purplish especially in the inflor- 
escence, 
Culms tufted, erect, slender, not branching, nearly smooth, 1 to 2 feet tall. 
Leaves; radical and of radical shoots with narrow, close sheaths and slender 
involute blades, 4 to 10 inches long; of culm 3 or 4; lower sheaths longer than inter- 
nodes, upper ones much shorter, close, smooth ; blade involute, hispid above, 3 to 
6 inches long ; ligule a line of fine short hairs, somewhat hairy at the sides. 
Spikelets narrow, 1-flowered, 5 to 6 lines long; first glume narrowly lance-lin- 
ear, emarginate, mucronate, rounded, hispid on keel, 1-nerved, 4 to 4} lines long; 
second glume same but nearly 2 lines longer; stipe hairy, 3 line long; floral glume 
linear-lanceolate, rounded, slightly hispid on the nerve above, 4 lines long, termi- 
ating in 3 separate, s ender, minutely hispid awns 1 to 2 inches long; palet obo- 
s 
PLATE VII: a, spikelet twice as large as natural size. 
Abundant on plains and ridges, in’ several varieties, from Texas to British 
America, It is the earliest available grass for cattle in the spring, but of little 
value when mature, 
