No. 35. 
TRIODIA GRANDIFLORA Vasey. 
Plant perennial, with tufted bulbous base, rather glaucous or minutely cinerous- 
pubescent throughout 
Culm unades erect, not branching, often geniculate at the hairy nodes, terete, 
sparingly Sahaients 1 to 2 feet tall. 
eaves; radical, numerous with compressed, equitant, hairy-fringed sheaths 
and flat or folded, white-margined, alam obtuse or abruptly pointed blades 
2 to 4 inches long; of culm 3, rarely 2 or 4; sheaths half as long as interneéal 
close, slightly pubescent or nearly glabrous; blades like those of radical leaves but 
upper ones shorter and erect. 
‘Inflorescence a close, contracted, head-like white panicle, composed of numer- 
ous, nearly sessile branches, 1 to 2 inches long; rachis and branches somewhat 
pubescent, or scabrous. 
Spikelets nearly sessile, oblanceolate, compressed, 4- to 6-flowered, 2 lines wide, 
4 to d lines long; first eldu6 lance-ovate, acute, carinate, membranaceous, minutely 
scabrous on keel, 1-nerved or sometimes 3-nerved on lower spikelets, 2 to 3 lines 
long; second glume same, but ciliate at base, always 1-nerved, and 1 line longer; 
floral glume lance-ovate, obtuse and minutely ciliate, or with 2 narrow lobes at — 
apex, pubescent below, profusely ciliate, 3-nerved, 2 to 3 lines long; hispid mid- 
nerve excurrent in an awn $} to | line long; palet broadly lanceolate, pubescent at 
the base and on the 2 prominent kcels, 1 to 14 lines long, 
Grain not present in the specimens examined. 
PLATE XXXV; a and J, floral glumes showing the extremes of variation at 
the nae c, palet. 
This species has been called 7. avenacea H. B. K., from which it differs in its 
much larger size, and in its flowers, as is shown by a comparison of the figure in 
LB 
Western Texas to Arizona and Mexico. 
