380 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM, i 



A low delicate perennial, prostrate below, geniculate at the lower nodes, the 

 branches commonly in pairs or fascicles; nodes and summit of the sheaths 

 pilose ; blades flat er folded, 8 to 12 mm. long, about 1.5 mm. wide ; racemes of 

 few to several minute spikes, the spikelet solitary, pilose at base, 3 to 4 mm. 

 long; glumes lanceolate, acuminate, the first one-third, the second slightly over 

 half the length of the spikelet ; fertile lemma narrow, with 3 erect scabrous 

 teeth at the summit, the palea 2-toothed, shorter; sterile floret about equaling 

 the fertile lemma, consisting of 3 slender scabrous awns. 



Arid open ground, Haiti (Gonaives, Buch 1910) and Porto Rico (red soil 

 plain, Salinas de Guanica, Britton, Cowell & Brown 4918). Originally de- 

 scribed from Hispaniola. Eutriana ledebouri was described from " Domingo " 

 (though the type specimen, collected by Poiteau, is labeled "Hayti"). Grif- 

 fiths * applies Desvaux's specific name to a Mexican species, Bouteloua triana 

 (Trin.) Scribn., basing his judgment on Beauvois's crude illustration, and lists 

 Eutriana ledebouri under species excluded from Bouteloua. Until recently 

 collected by Buch in Haiti and by Britton, Cowell, and Brown in Porto Rico 

 this species was known only from the collections described by Desvaux and by 

 Trinius. The Mexican B. triana, with its spikes of a single spikelet, was 

 apparently the only species to which Beauvois's figure could apply, though the 

 description stat«s that the lemma of the fertile floret is minutely trifid and the 

 figure shows such a lemma. In the Mexican species the lemma is entire, while 

 in Buch's specimen from Haiti the lemma is trifid. Pilger 2 applies the name 

 "Bouteloua americana (Desv.) Pilger" to Buch's collection, basing the name 

 on " Triathera americana Desv., excluding synonymy." Desvaux * described 

 the genus Triathera with a single species, T. americana, based on "Aristida 

 americana Sw." (the same as A. americana L., as is shown clearly by Swartz's 

 illustration; 4 that is, Bouteloua americana). Desvaux mentioned no specimen 

 of his own, but later 5 he emended the generic description, accepting the specific 

 name " juncea," as published under his authorship the previous year by 

 Beauvois, and added "Habitat in Hispaniola." 



3. Bouteloua americana (L.) Scribn. Proc. Acad. Phila. 1891: 306. 1891. 



Aristida americana L. Syst. Nat. ed. 10. 2: 879. 1759. 



Aristida antillarum Poir. in Lam. Encycl. Suppl. 1 : 451. 1810. 



Bouteloua litigiosa Lag. Gen. & Sp. Nov. 5. 1816. 

 . Chaetaria antillarum Beauv. ; Roem. & Schult. Syst. Veg. 2: 395. 1817. 



Aristida subbiflora Steud. Syn. PI. Glum. 1: 138. 1854. 



Eutriana antillarum Steud. Syn. PI. Glum. 1 : 217. 1854. 



Bouteloua elatior Griseb. Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 537. 1864. 



Aristida adscensionis var. americana Kuntze, Rev. Gen. PI. 3: 340. 1898. 



A tufted perennial, the freely branching flattened wiry culms often 60 or 

 70 cm. long (sometimes longer), decumbent with ascending ends, the narrow 

 blades mostly involute-pointed, the few to several slender, loosely flowered 

 spikes divergent, rather distant. 



Open, dry ground, West Indies to Panama and Venezuela. Aristida ameri- 

 cana (of which B. litigiosa is a typonym) was described from Jamaica, A. 

 antillarum from the Antilles, A. subbi flora from Guadeloupe, and Bouteloua 

 elaiior from Antigua. 



'Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 14: 424. 1912. 



3 In Urban, Symb. Antill. 5: 288. 1907. 



'Nouv. Bull. Soc. Philom. Paris 2: 188. 1810. 



* Obs. Bot. pi. 2. f. 2. 1791. 



5 Journ. de Bot. Desv. 1: 67. 1813. 



