No. 47. 

 BUCHLOE DACTYLOIDES Engelmann. 



Plant usually dioecious, rarely monoecious, male and female flowers hetero- 

 morphous. 



Culms low, 4 to 8 inches high, in dense matted tufts or patches, interlaced with 

 stolons from a few inches to 2 feet long, with nodes usually 2 to 3 inches apart, 

 these developing tufts of leaves and culms and often taking root. 

 Male plant. 



Culms slender, erect or decumbent at base, with 3 or 4 leaves. 



Leaves. Radical 4 to 6 inches long, 1 line or less wide, acuminate, smooth or 

 ciliate, those of the culm \ to 2 inches long; upper sheaths often longer than the 

 blades, loose; ligule and throat hairy. 



Inflorescence a terminal panicle of 2 to 4 approximate, sessile or nearly sessile 

 spikes, each | inch or less in length. 



Spikelets 5 to 10 or more in 2 ranks on one side of the rachis, crowded, each 2- 

 or 3-flowered, about 2 lines long. 



Outer empty glumes unequal, 1-nerved or the lower nerveless and minute, the 

 upper one-half to two-thirds as long as the spikelet, oblong, acute, minutely pub- 

 escent; flowering glumes ovate, 2 lines long, membranaceous. 



Palet ovate, acuminate, as long as the flowering glumes, 2-nerved; stamens 

 3; anthers 1 line long, linear. 

 Female plant. 



Flowering culms short, 2 to 3 inches high, 2 or 3 upper leaves clustered at the 

 apex, their sheaths inclosing the base of the fertile flowers. 



Inflorescence consisting of 1 to 3, commonly 2, short, clustered spikes, each 3 to 

 3-£ lines high, and of about 5 spikelets; rachis of the spike thickened. 



Spikelets very different from the male ones, being each 1-flowered and the parts 

 much indurated and modified. 



Upper empty glume indurated and cohering at the base with the enlarged 

 rachis, becoming almost woody, divided at the apex into 3 or more rigid teeth, body 

 convex externally and infolding the flower on its concave side; all the lower empty 

 glumes (except that of the lowest spikelet) thin, ovate, acute, 1-nerved, scale-like, 

 on the inner side of the spikelet; flowering glumes coriaceous, 3-nerved, 3-toothed 

 at apex. 



Palet similar in texture to the flowering glume, 2-nerved, 2-toothed, inclosing 

 the large ovary. 



Plate XLVII; 1, male plant ; 2, female plant ; a, male spikelets ; b, empty 

 glumes of same; c, flowering glume of same; d, palet of same; A, female spikelet; 

 B, upper empty glume ; C, flowering glume ; D, palet. • 



This grass is extensively spread over all the region known as the Great Plains. 

 It grows in extensive patches, spreading largely by means of its stolons (similar to 

 those of Bermuda grass), which are sometimes 3 feet long, with joints every few 

 inches, frequently rooting at the joints and forming neAV plants. 



The flowers of the two sexes are usually on separate plants, but sometimes 

 both kinds are found on different parts of the same plant. This and the grama 

 niass (Bouteloua oligostachya) are the principal native grasses of the Plains, and 

 afforded the principal subsistence of the herds of buffalo which formerly inhabited 

 them. It is rapidly disappearing before the advance of settlements. 



