64 BULLETIN 772, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
20. PHRAGMITES Adans., the reeds. 
Spikelets several-flowered, the rachilla clothed with long silky hairs, 
disarticulating above the glumes and at the base of each joint between 
the florets, the lowest floret staminate or neuter; glumes 3-nerved, or 
the upper 5-nerved, lanceolate, acute, unequal, the first about half 
as long as the upper, the second shorter than the florets; lemmas 
narrow, long-acuminate, glabrous, 3-nerved, the florets successively 
smaller, the summits of all about equal; palea much shorter than the 
lemma. 
Perennial reeds, with broad, flat linear blades and large terminal 
panicles. Species three, one in Asia, one in Argentina, and one cos- 
mopolitan. 
Type species: Arundo phragmites lL. 
Phragmites Adans., Fam. Pl. 2: 34, 559. 1763. Adanson cites “Arundo 
Scheuz. 161,” which Linnzeus also cites under Arundo phragmites. Adanson 
cites besides four other pre-Linnzean references, two of them queried. The other 
two, which may refer to sugar cane or to sorghum, are to be excluded because 
the few generic characters given, especially that the spikelets have several per- 
fect flowers, do not at all apply to them, but do apply to Arundo phragmites. 
Trinius * publishes Phragmites as a new genus based on Arundo phragmites L., 
changing the specific name to P. communis. 
Trichoon Roth, Archiv Bot. Roemer 1°: 37. 1798. Based on Arundo karka 
Retz., an Hast Indian species of Phragmites. j 
Miphragtes Nieuwl., Amer. Midl. Nat. 3: 332. 1914. The name suggested for 
Phragmites Trin. not Phragmites Adans. in case Trichoon Roth and Oxyanthe 
Steud., to each of which Nieuwland transfers the specific name ‘* Phragmites,” 
should not “be applicable.” 
Our single species Phragmites communis Trin. (P. phragmites (L.) 
Karst.) (fig. 27) is a tall reed with creeping rhizomes, leaves about 
an inch broad, and panicles commonly a foot long. It grows in 
marshes, around springs, and along lakes and streams throughout the 
United States. Besides the rhizomes it produces extensively creep- 
ing leafy stolons. In the Southwest this species, in common with 
Arundo donaa, is called by the Mexican name carrizo and is used for 
lattices in the construction of adobe huts. The stems were used by 
the Indians for the shafts of arrows, and in Mexico and Arizona for 
mats and screens. 
21. Dactyzris I. 
Spikelets few-flowered, compressed, finally disarticulating between 
the florets, nearly sessile in dense one-sided fascicles, these borne at 
the ends of the few branches of a panicle; glumes unequal, carinate, 
acute, hispid-ciliate on the keel; lemmas compressed-keeled, mucro- 
nate, 5-nerved, ciliate on the keel. 
Perennials, with flat blades and fascicled spikelets. Species two 
or three, in Eurasia; one, Dactylis glomerata, a native of Europe, cul- 
tivated and naturalized in the United States. 
1Fund. Agrost. 134. 1820. 
