HITCHCOCK AND CHASE — NORTH AMERICAN PANICUM. 171 



Fig. 162. — P. angustifolium. From type 

 specimen. 



Panicum curtisii Steud. Syn. PI. Glum. 1 : 66. 1854. " M. A. Curtis sub: P. ner- 

 vosum. Muhlbrg. var. legit in Carolina." The type in the Paris Herbarium, labeled 

 by Steudel "Panicum curtisii Steud. Panicum nervosum Muhlb. var.? M. A. Curtis. 

 Carolina australis, Commun. Lenormand," is a somewhat fragmentary specimen, but 

 appears to be P. angustifolium. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Vernal form with erect or nearly erect culms 30 to 55 cm. high, the lowermost inter- 

 nodes gray crisp villous, the middle and upper glabrous; nodes glabrous or the lower 

 villous, not bearded; lower sheaths more or less appressed-villous, the upper glabrous, 

 except the usually ciliate margin; blades 8 to 12, rarely 15, cm. long, 4 to 8 mm. wide 

 (lowermost blades shorter and broader and longitudinally wrinkled), stiffly ascending, 

 the upper more appressed, long-acuminate, scarcely narrowed at base; panicles long- 

 exserted, 4 to 10 cm. long, nearly as wide, loosely flowered, the branches at anthesis 



widely spreading, the lower 3 to 4 cm. long, 

 often reflexed; spikelets 2.5" to 2.8 mm. long, 

 1.4 to 1.6 mm. wide, elliptic-obovate, turgid; 

 first glume about one-third the length of the 

 spikelet, pointed or obtuse; second glume and 

 sterile lemma equal, covering the fruit at ma- 

 turity, not beaked beyond it, papillose-villous; 

 fruit 2 mm. long, 1.3 to 1.5 mm. wide, broadly 

 elliptic, minutely puberulent at the obscurely 

 umbonate apex. 



Autumnal culms stiffly ascending or some- 

 what topheavy-reclining, not spreading nor 

 mat -like; blades very numerous, flat, ap- 

 pressed, rather thin and papery, panicles reduced (the later ones often to two or three 

 spikelets), overtopped by the leaves; spikelets commonly more turgid and blunt than 

 those of the primary panicles. 



The flat, papery blades of the autumnal form as seen in the spring still attached to 

 the plants bearing the vernal culm are very characteristic of this species and of the two 

 others of this group with flat autumnal blades (P. consanguineum and P. chrysopsidi- 

 foliura). 



DISTRIBUTION. 



Sandy pine woods along the Coastal Plain from Pennsylvania to northern Florida 

 and westward to eastern Texas. 



Pennsylvania: "Bank of Schuylkill below Reading, 1849, Thos. C. Porter" 

 (Acad. Phil. Herb.). 



Delaware: Frankford, Commons 

 in 1875. 



Virginia: Vicinity of Cape Henry, 

 Chase 5415, Hitchcock 348, Kear- 

 ney 1369, 1416, Williams 3100; 

 Dismal Swamp, Chase 3677. 



North Carolina: Roanoke Island, 

 Chase 3249, 3250; vicinity of 

 Wilmington, Chase 3138, 3163, 

 4585, Hitchcock 1466£, 1475; 

 Onslow County, Chase 3169; 

 Chapel Hill, Chase 3063; Ral- 

 eigh, Chase 3082; Caraleigh Junction, Chase 3087. 



South Carolina: Fripps Island, Cuthbert 1165; Orangeburg, Hitchcock 349, 1408; 

 Aiken, Ravenel in 1882. 



Fig. 163.— Distribution of P. angustifolium. 



