49 



linear-lanceolate, about 1 foot long, four to six lines wide, and with 

 a conspicuous elongated ligule. The panicle is from 6 to 12 inches 

 long, rather loose and open in the flower, afterwards more close. 

 The branches are four or five together below, about 2 inches long, 

 above in twos or threes and shorter. The spikelets are one-flowered, 

 much flattened, rather crowded on the branches, frequently purple 

 colored. The glumes are linear-lanceolate, roughish, acute, and 

 strongly keeled, mostly three-nerved, firm in texture, about two lines 

 long, the lower rather the shorter. The flower is short-stalked within 

 the glumes; the flowering glume is as long as the outer ones, and 

 of the same texture, rather scabrous and three-nerved, and usually 

 with a very short awn near the apex. The palet is rather shorter 

 than its glume, thin and membranaceous, except on the green some- 

 what rough nerve. This is one of the very rare cases in which the 

 true palet has only a simple nerve, probably, Mr. Beutham says, by 

 the consolidation of two. There is but one stamen. 



This leafy-stemmed grass furnishes a large quantity of fodder, 

 but experiments are wanting to determine its availability under cul- 

 tivation. 



2. C. Bolanderi, /Scrib. California. 



3. 0. pendula, Trin. New England to California. 



This species is more slender, with a looser drooping panicle and 

 more capillary branches, and with thinner glumes. It occurs in the 

 same, situations as the preceding, and is more common in the Rocky 

 Mountains and Oregon. 



Gasteidium, Beauv. 



Spikelets one-flowered, in a loose, tapering, spike-like panicle; 

 outer glumes extended into long acute points, and with an enlarged 

 ventricose base, obscurely keeled, the lower longer than the upper; 

 flowering glumes very thin, about one-fourth as long as the outer 

 ones, hairy on the back, truncate and dentate at the apex, usually 

 emitting from near the apex a slender awn as long as or longer 

 than the glumes ; palet thin, as long as its glume. A sterile pedicel 

 at the base of the flower. 

 1. G. australe, Beauv. Sparingly introduced. 



Apeea, Adans. 

 Spikelets one-flowered, small, loosely paniculate, the rhachilla 



