232 BULLETIN 772, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
at the base of the culms. Panicum tewanum Buckl., Texas millet, 
Colorado grass, is an annual rather weedy grass of Texas that has 
been utilized for hay. It has been called Colorado grass because it 
grows in the valley of the Colorado River. Panicwm dichotomi- 
fiorum Michx. is a smooth, annual, much-branched, rather succulent 
weed, common in the eastern United States in the autumn. The 
first glume is very short and truncate. Panicum capillare L. (fig. 
140), old-witch grass, is an annual weed, with hirsute sheaths and a 
relatively large open capillary panicle with small spikelets. At 
maturity the panicle breaks away and is blown about by the wind 
as a tumble grass. Panicum geminatwm Forsk. (fig. 141), a common 
tropical species, extends into Florida and Texas. 
Besides the two subgenera there are a few species that can not be 
included in true Panicum. Two of these within our range are of 
some importance. Panicum obtusum H. B. K. (fig. 142), a forage 
grass of the Southwest, producing long wiry stolons with bearded. 
swollen nodes, and short, erect, fertile culms with narrow panicles of 
obtuse spikelets,is called grapevine mesquite, because of the long, 
tough stolons, and adobe grass, because it is found on slightly alka- 
line soil. This species differs from Eupanicum in the long first 
glume and the racemose branches of the inflorescence. Panicum 
hemitomon Schult., maiden cane, is found in moist soil, often in 
the water, from Texas to Florida and Delaware near the coast. It 
produces extensively creeping rhizomes and numerous sterile shoots. 
The panicle is narrow, with short appressed branches. On account 
of the rhizomes it becomes a troublesome weed in cultivated soil, 
especially in Florida. This species differs from Eupanicum in the 
less chartaceous fruit with the palea free at the tip. The seeds of 
Panicum sonorwm Beal are used for food by the Cocopa Indians. 
‘See Williams, U. S. Dept. Agr., Farmers’ Bull. 101, 1899; Serib- 
ner, U. S. Dept. Agr.,; Div. Agrost. Bull. 20, fig. 23, 1900; Hitch- 
cock and Chase, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 15, 1910. The last work 
is a revision of the genus Panicum in North America and gives full 
descriptions and synonymy of all the species. 
119. LAstActs (Griseb.) Hitche. 
Spikelets subglobose, placed obliquely on their pedicels; first glume 
broad, somewhat inflated-ventricose, usually not over one-third the 
length of the spikelet, several-nerved; second glume and sterile 
lemma about equal, broad, abruptly apiculate, papery-chartaceous, 
shining, many-nerved, glabrous, or lanose at the apex only, the lemma 
inclosing a membranaceous palea and sometimes a staminate flower ; 
fertile lemma white, bony-indurate, obovoid, obtuse, this and the 
palea of the same texture, bearing at the apex in a slight crateriform 
