A SYNOPSIS OF THE GENUS SITANION. 
CHARACTERS OF THE GENUS. 
SITANION Rafinesque, in Journ. Phys., 89: 103, 1819. 
en. N. Am. Pl., 1: 86, 1818; not Linn. (1737.) 
Potyantherir Kee, in Ann. Nat. Hist., Ser. I, 1: 284, 1838. 
ere " the spike artic- 
es 3 at each node 
base; with recurving or spreading, scabrous awns terminating 
Flowering glumes all alike, 8 acute, or that of the lowest floret sterile 
ee ee empty glumes; entire or 
ding awn, or trifid and 3-awned. 
very rarely spiciform- ee A genus endemic to 
western North America, containing 23 species. 
i on, section Elymoides, consists of 4 species intermediate between thi 
genus and e They are placed here tentatively, as being more closely allied 
to Sitani 
ANALYTICAL KEY TO THE SPECIES. 
* Empty glumes many-lobed; lowest floret sterile, subulate-setaceous. 
+ Culms nest; 6— dm. bi gh, spike and florets large; awn of the asiste 
i. ubatum. 
o TID om long. ot S. ju 
tt Culms 1-5 dm. eh; spike and cage eite or small; awn of the flower- 
me 2-7 em 
Leaves short, flat, divergent; He blade and sheaths . 
2. S. villosum 
Leaves long, erect or ascending, involute, strigose or pubescent 
f the empty and flowering glumes about as long as the axis 
J DLL Dee DUIS S. multisetum. 
Ans of the empty and edis glumes . than the axis 
of the spike. 
a Leaves of the innovations involute, filiform, pilose. 
. eee 
b Leaves of the innovations involute, rather rigid, strigos 
5. S. brev tian: 
**Some of the empty glumes pode bifid from about the middle, the lobes 
abruptly divergent; lowest floret of one or both spikelets sterile and like the 
empty deseen! but inserted on ‘he rhachilla and falling away with it. 
+ Only oné spikelet at each eth = fertile florets S. minus. 
tt Both iate bearing fertile 
iths and dorsal surface ws Tari glabrous; glaucous. 
a daw alpine plants 7. S. rigidum. 
9. S. glabrum. 
.S. insulare. 
13. S. ewspitosum. 
9 
