BUT.LETIN 309, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGEICULTUKE. 



fact that the Mexican name for the roots is ^'Raiz de zacaton"; that 

 is, roots of grass, in literal translation. Zacaton ^ is the name most 

 commonly applied to the species in Mexico. The French name for 



the root-brush mate- 

 rial is ' ^ chiendent, ' ' 

 while ^'Mexican 

 whisk" is still an- 

 other name applied 

 to it. 



The first known 

 collection of E'pi- 

 campes macroura 

 was made by Hum- 

 boldt and Bonpland 

 in the mountains of 

 Toluca, in the State 

 of Mexico, at an 

 altitude of 10,500 

 feet, sometime prior 

 to 1815. In the 

 working up of this 

 collection the speci- 

 mens were assigned 

 to the genus Crypsis 

 Ait. under the spe- 

 cific names ma- 

 croura, pJhleoides, 

 and stricta. About 

 1829, when Kunth 

 published that por- 

 tion of his ' ' Revision 

 des Graminees"^ 

 containing the Agro- 

 stideae, he evidently 

 had changed his 

 mind as to the as- 

 signment of these 

 specimens to Crypsis 

 and reassigned them 

 to Linnseus's genus Cinna. Many years later, about 1886, Eugene 

 Fournier,^ in working up the collections of Mexican plants deposited 

 in the herbarium of the Museum of Paris, established a new genus, 



Fig. 1. — Zacaton (Epicampes macroura), whole plant, one-sixth natural 

 size, a, Three spikelets, 4 times natural size; b, empty glumes, 4 times 

 natural size; c, flowering glume, dorsal view, 4 times natural size; 

 d, palet, dorsal view, 4 times natural size. 



1 Zacaton as a common name is applied also to Muhlenbergia distichophylla (Presl) Kunth and Sporobolus 

 wrigMii Munro. 



2 Kunth, K. S. Revision des Graminees. 3 v. Paris, 1829. 



3 Fournier, Eugene. Mexicanas Plantas . . . pars. 2, p. 90. Parisiis, 1886. 



