12 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM, 



la. Festuca octoflora hirtella subsp. nov. 



Flowering glumes hirtellous; foliage more or less pubescent. Type specimen col- 

 lected by C. L. Shear (no. 1962) in the Santa Catalina Mountains, Arizona, April 10, 

 1901. Other specimens are referred here as follows, viz: 



Aeizona: 



Tucson Mountains, Griffiths 2355. 



Tucson, Tourney, April 15, 1894. 



Santa Rita Forest Reserve, Griffiths 3815. ' 



Castle Rock, Griffiths 2333. 

 Nevada: 



Vegas Wash, Lincoln County, Coville cfe Funston 419. 

 California: 



Without locality, Palmer 654. 



Without locality, Mrs. Bush. 



San Bernardino Mountains, Parish 1530. 



Colorado Desert, Orcutt in 1889. 



Bishop, if. E. Jones, May 15, 1897. 



Old Wilson Trail, Geo. B. Grant 5419 in part. 



Sierra Nevada, Lemmon 4659. 

 Lower California: 



Mission Santa Gertrudis, Orcutt, JNIarch 10, 1899. 



Guadalupe Ranch, Orcutt 1432. 



Lagoon Head, Palmer 655. 



2. Festuca pacifica sp. nov. 



Culms slender, erect, or geniculate at base, glabrous, usually 30 to 50 cm. high, 

 3-jointed, solitary or loosely tufted; sheaths glabrous or puberulent, striate, the lower 

 two about as long as their respective internodes, the upper much shorter than the 

 peduncle; ligule very short but broader than the blade, decurrent; blades narrowly 

 linear, very acute, soft, glabrous, loosely involute, 3 to 5 cm. long; panicle more or 

 less secund, 5 to 12 cm. long; the lower branches solitary, divaricate, bearing spike- 

 lets on the lower side nearly or quite from the base; axis and branchlets sharply 

 2-angled, somewhat channeled, glabrous; pedicels clavate, flattened, mostly very 

 short; spikelets 3 to 6-flowered; joints of the rachilla cylindric, scabrous; lower 

 glume subulate-lanceolate, 1-nerved, glabrous, 4 mm. long; upper glume lanceolate- 

 acuminate, 3-nerved, glabrous, 5 mm. long; lemma lanceolate, scabrous excepting 

 in the lowermost floret (this smooth), 6 to 7 mm. long, attenuate into a scabrous 

 awn 10 to 15 mm. long; palea lanceolate, longer than the lemma, the inflexed sides 

 half as wide as the scabrous internerve, the scabrous acuminate apex readily split- 

 ting into two awnlike teeth; perfect stamen usually one, sometimes three; grain 

 dark-colored, lanceolate, deeply grooved, adherent to the glume and palea. 



The rachilla readily breaks so that all the florets except the more persistent low- 

 ermost drop out when mature. 



This is the commonest and most widespread species of the microstachys group, 

 ranging from British Columbia to Lower California and Arizona, but apparently not 

 occuring east of the Rocky Mountains. The type is Elmer's 262, collected June 20, 

 1896, at Pullman, Washington. Figure 91, Vol. II, Illustrations of North American 

 Grasses, refers mai^ly to Festuca pacifica. The following collections are representa- 

 tive of this species: 



