YD) BULLETIN 772, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Olyra L., Syst. Nat., ed. 10, 2:1261. 1759. <A tropical American 
genus, one species of which, O. latifolia L. (fig. 153) is credited 
to Florida by Small in his Flora of the Southeastern United States. 
The record is doubtful. 
A glabrous perennial, bamboolike in aspect, as much as 15 feet 
tall, the branches straggling over shrubs; blades petiolate, asym- 
metrically lanceolate-oblong, as much as 8 inches long and 2 inches 
wide; panicles 4 to 6 inches long, the branches stiffly ascending or 
spreading, each bearing a single, large, long-acuminate, pistillate 
spikelet at the thickened summit and several small slender-pediceled 
staminate spikelets along the branch. 
13. ANDROPOGONEAE, THE SORGHUM TRIBE. 
128. ImprrRaTa Cyrillo. 
Spikelets all alike, awnless, in pairs, unequally pedicellate on a 
slender continuous rachis, surrounded by long silky hairs; glumes 
about equal, membranaceous; sterile lemma, fertile lemma, and palea 
thin and hyaline. 
Perennial, slender, erect grasses, with terminal narrow woolly pani- 
cles. Species seven, in the tropical regions of both hemispheres; two 
species in the United States, three others in tropical America. 
Type species: Lagurus cylindricus ib 
Imperata Cyrillo, Pl. Rar. Neap. 2: 26. 1792. <A single species is described, 
I. arundinacea Cyrillo, but the genus is based upon Lagurus cylindricus L. 
Our species are /mperata brasiliensis Trin., in southern Florida, 
and J. hookera Rupr. (fig. 154), from western Texas to southern 
California. They are not found in sufficient abundance to be of 
agricultural value. 
129. MiscantHus Anderss. 
Spikelets all alike, in pairs unequally pedicellate along a slender 
continuous rachis; glumes equal, membranaceous or somewhat coria- 
ceous; sterile lemma a little shorter than the glumes, hyaline; fertile 
Jemma hyaline, smaller than the sterile lemma, extending into a deli- 
cate bent and flexuous awn; palea small and hyaline. 
Robust perennials, with long flat blades and terminal panicles of 
ageregate spreading slender racemes, our species with a tuft of 
silky hairs at the base of the spikelet, surrounding it and of about 
the same length as the glumes, the palea of the short-pedicellate spike- 
let about one-fourth as long as the lemma, the palea of the long- 
pedicellate spikelet obsolete. Species about eight, in southeastern 
Asia and South Africa; one cultivated in the United States. 
1Cyrillo gives the generic heading thus: “Imperata. Lagurus cylindricus Linn., Sp. 
Pl. 120, n. 2.” 
aS 
