GENERA OF GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 158 
The single species (fig. 87) is a tufted grass about a foot high, 
found on open or rocky soil at middle altitudes from Colorado to 
central Mexico. It is a palatable grass, sufficiently abundant in places 
to be of importance. Until recent 
years the species was included in 
Sporobolus. 
71. Crypsis Ait. 
Spikelets 1-flowered, the rachilla 
disarticulating below the glumes; 
glumes about equal, narrow, acute; 
lemma broad, thin, awnless; palea 
similar to the lemma, about as long, 
2-nerved, readily splitting between 
the nerves; fruit a utricle, the seed 
free from the thin pericarp. 
A spreading annual, with capitate 
inflorescences in the axils of broad 
bracts, these being enlarged sheaths 
with short rigid blades. Species 
one, in the Mediterranean region; 
sparingly introduced into the United 
States. 
Type species: Schoenus aculeatus L. 
Crypsis Ait., Hort. Kew. 1: 48. 1789. 
A single species is mentioned, with two 
varieties or forms, a (the equivalent of 
the species), based on Schoenus aculeatus 
L., and 8, based on Phlewm schoenoides 
L. The first is the type. 
Bentham and Hooker? state 
that the spikelet has four 
glumes and no palea. Hackel? 
states that the palea is 1-nerved. 
Our specimens show an eyi- 
dently 2-nerved palea. 
;, 87.—Blepharoneuron tricholepis. Plant, * 1; spike- 
let and floret, * 5. 
y2 
1Gen. Pl. 3: 1139. 1888. 2Wngl. and Prantl, Panzenfam, 27: 48. 1887. 
