24 BULLETIN 772, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
quently. The first is rarely over 6 feet tall, with drooping blades, 
the inflorescence on leafless or nearly leafless shoots from the base of 
the plant. This is found from Maryland southward. The other 
species grows to a height of as much as 25 or 30 feet and forms, in 
the alluvial river bottoms of the Southern States, dense thickets 
called canebrakes. The racemes are borne on leafy branches, the 
species flowering less frequently than the small cane. 
Stock are fond of the young plants and of the leaves and seeds, and 
both species furnish much forage in localities where they are abun- 
dant. The young shoots are sometimes used as a potherb. The 
stems or culms of the large cane are used for fishing rods, pipestems, 
baskets, mats, light scaffolding, and for a variety of other purposes. 
2. FESTUCEAE, THE FESCUE TRIBE. 
2. Bromus L., the brome-grasses. 
Spikelets several to many flowered, the rachilla disarticulating 
above the glumes and between the florets; glumes unequal, acute, the 
first 1 to 3 nerved, the second usually 3 to 5 nerved; lemmas convex 
on the back or keeled, 5 to 9 nerved, 2-toothed at the apex, awnless or 
usually awned from between the teeth; palea usually shorter than 
the lemma. 
Annual or perennial, low or rather tall grasses, with closed sheaths, 
flat blades, and open or contracted panicles of large spikelets. Species 
about 100, in temperate regions; about 48 species in the United 
States, of which 17 are introductions, mostly from Europe. 
Type species: Bromus secalinus L. 
Bromus L., Sp. Pl. 76, 1753; Gen. Pl., ed. 5, 38. 1754. Linnzeus describes 11 
species, all but the last 2 of which are still retained in the genus. The cita- 
tion given after Bromus in the Genera Plantarum is ‘ Mont. 32.” This refers 
to figure 32 in the plate accompanying Monti’s Catalogi Stirpium Agri Bononiensis 
Prodromus, published in 1719. This figure represents a spikelet of Bromus 
secalinus, or of a closely allied species. As Bromus secalinus is the first species 
described in the Species Plantarum and was described in the flora of Sweden, 
this species is chosen as the type. 
Ceratochloa Beauv., Ess. Agrost. 75, pl. 15, f. 7. 1812. <A single species in- 
eluded. Festuca unioloides Willd., which is the basis of Bromus unioloides 
(Willd.) H. B. K. : 
Zerna Panz., Denkschr. Baier. Akad. Wiss. Miiench. 4: 296. 1818. (Ideen 
Gatt. Graser 46, pl. 11, f. 3.) Eleven species are included. Bromus sterilis 
L., the one figured, is taken as the type. 
Serrafalcus Parl., Rar. Pl. Sic. 2: 14. 1840. Six species are included. Bro- 
mus racemosus L., on which the first species is based, is taken as the type. 
Forasacecus Bubani, Fl. Pyren. 4: 380. 1901. Proposed for Bromus L., not 
Bromus of the ancients, which is said to be wild oats. 
The section Ceratochloa has large compressed spikelets with com- 
pressed-keeled glumes and lemmas. One species, Bromus unioloides 
(Willd.) H. B. K., is cultivated as a forage grass under the name 
of rescue grass or Schrader’s brome-grass. This is an annual or bi- 
ennial grass 1 to 2 feet tall, with pubescent sheaths and narrow pani- 
cles of smooth spikelets as much as an inch long, the lemmas acumi- 
