104 



Fig. 78. Gymnopogon ambiguus (Michx.) B, S. P. (G. raeemosus Beauv.). 

 NAKED BEARD-GRASS.— a, A spikelet ; 6, the empty glumes ; c, a spikelet 

 with the empty glumes removed. Fig. 192 in Bui. 7 illustrates a second species 

 of this genus. 



78. GYMNOPOGON Beauv. Agrost. 41 t. 9. f. S. 1812. Spikelets 1- flowered, 

 subsessile, rather distant along one side of a slender filiform rachis, forming 

 slender unilateral spikes; rachilla articulated above the empty glumes and 

 produced beyond the floret as a slender, and usually awned rudiment. Empty 

 glumes 2, very narrow, subequal, as long as or longer than the floral glumes; 

 flowering glume broader, 3-nerved, bearing a slender, straight awn below 

 the 2-cleft apex. Grain inclosed within the rigid fruiting glume, free. Peren- 

 nial grasses, with short, rather broad and rigid leaves and numerous slender 

 spikes which are at first erect, finally divaricate spreading or reflexed. 



Species 6, one in Ceylon, the others American. Two species in the Eastern 

 and Southern States. 



