(iRASS FAMILY. 37 



hyaline; upper Umceolate, awn-pointed, about 4J lines long; empty 

 bractlets curved, emarginate or shortly biiid, IJ lines long; awn short; 

 stigmas long-exserted. 



Introduced at Mendocino City and Crescent City, and reported by 

 Dr. Behr as occurring in Marin Co. May-July." Its fragrance is 

 attributed to the presence of cumarin. 



7. HIEROCHLOE Gmel. Vanilla-gk.vss. 



Sweet-scented perennials, with flat, often broad, acuminate leaf- 

 blades. Panicle loose, pyramidal. Spikelets somewhat laterally 

 compressed, often shining and soabrid, with 1 terminal, perfect 

 flower, subtended by (in ours) 2 staminate ones; bracts about equal, 

 obscurely 1 to 3-nerved, keeled, acute, glabrous. Staminate flowei-s 

 sessile; braotlet and palea alike, villous, scarcely shorter than the 

 bracts, obtuse emarginate or bifid, keeled, the main nerve often 

 extending into a short awn; braetlet 5-nerved; palea 2-nerved; 

 stamens 3. Perfect flower shortly pedicellate; braetlet becoming 

 indurated above, awnless, 5-nerved; palea narrow, 3-nerved or nerve- 

 less beyond the keel; stamens often 2 only. Scales 2, lanceolate. 

 Dvary smooth. (Greek hieros, sacred, chloe, a grass, with reference 

 to the use of one species in north Europe for strewing church floors 

 on special occasions, on account of its fragrance when crushed.) 



1. H. macrophylla Thurb. Lakce-leaved Vantlla-grass. 

 Eootstocks in buncnes (sometimes very large), stoloniferous ; stems 

 1 to 2 ft. high, erect, leafy; panicle narrow, 3 to 6 in. long, lax and 

 open; branches 1 or 2 at a joint, bearing few, large spikelets with 

 spreading bracts; spikelets about 2 lines long, 2 to 3 lines wide when 

 open, brownish, brightly shining; anthers yellow, about 1 line long. — 

 (Savastana macrophylla Beal.) 



In light, loose soil on moist, shaded banks of coniferous forests in 

 the redwood belt, from Marin Co. northward; Paper Mill Creek, 

 Marin Co., Bolimder in 1864; Inverness and Bear Valley near Olema; 

 Mill Valley; Russian Eiver from Duncan's Mills to Guerneville; 

 Austin Creek and Turner Canon. Mar.-May. Said to owe its 

 fragrance to the presence of cumarin; it has been known to re.tain 

 some of its odor for fully thirty years after gathering. 



Tribe 4. Agrostideae. Bj5nt-gr4s.s Tribe. 

 Inflorescence paniculate or rarely racemose, often cylindrical dense 

 and spikelike. Spikelets all fertile, strictly 1-flowered. Flower 

 always perfect, either terminal, or sometimes the rachilla prolonged 

 beyond its insertion, as a bristle. Rachilla jointed above the bracts 

 (except in Alopecurus and Polypogon) so that these persist after the 

 flower falls. Bracts usually equaling or exceeding the braetlet. 

 Palea 2-nevved or nerveless, in some species of Agrostis and 

 Alopecurus minute or obsolete. 



Braetlet indurated at maturity (at least firmer in texture than the bracts) and 

 very closely enveloping the fruit; panicle (in ours) lax. 

 Braetlet narrow; awn persistent, twisted, stout 8. Stip.4. 



