(iEASS FAMILY. ;39 



slender, about 1 in. long, seabrid but not haiiT; anthers tipped with 

 a tuft of short hairs. 



Dry hillsides of the Coast Eanges and foothills: Oakland hills- 

 Berkeley; Stone Bridge near St. Helena. Apr. -June. Frequently 

 occurring in company with S. setigera and sometimes confused with 

 it, but at once distinguishable by the shorter bracts and awn. The 

 home of the typical S. eminens Cav. is Ecuador, and it is said to 

 occur also in southern California and Arizona. 



3. S. viridula Trin., Feather BuNCH-eRASs, a perennial with 

 dense, narrow panicle and short, erect branches, and with naked 

 anthers, is found in the northern Coast Eanges and the middle Sierra 

 Nevada; reported from the vicinity of San Francisco by Dr. Behr. 



9. PHLEUM L. Timothy. 

 Ours perennial. Leaf-blades flat. Inflorescence a dense, cylin- 

 drical or ovoid thyrse or false spike, often pubescent, borne on a long 

 peduncle. Spikelets crowded, 3 lines or less long, niucb compressed 

 laterally, 1-flowered. Eachilla very short, jointed above the bracts and 

 sometimes extending beyond the insertion of the bractlet as a short 

 spine. Bracts distinct, complicate, boat-shaped, almost equal, mem- 

 branous, 1 to 3-nerved, sub-truncate, persistent, compressed-keeled, 

 the keel projecting into an abrupt mucro or very short awn. Bractlet 

 shorter than the bracts, awnless, very thiii, truncate or denticulate. 

 Palea narrow, hyaline, 2-nerved, sometimes bearing a minute bristle 

 on the back from near the base. Scales 2, hyaline, toothed above. 

 Stamens 3. Ovary smooth; styles long; stigmas slender. (Phleos, 

 the ancient Greek name for some marsh or water-plant, possibly the 

 Keed-mace — Typha, or Saccharum cylindricum Lam.) 



Panicle narrowly cylindrical, elongated, 1% to 9'/i in. long, rougli to the tonch, 



not feathery; spikelets about 1^ lines long Inclnding the awn 



1. P. pi'cUense. 



Panicle ovoid or oblong, H to 154 in. long, feathery; spikelets about 2% lines 

 long Including the awn . . . . . .2. P. alpinum. 



1. P. pratense L. Timothy. Eootstock tufted, stoloniferous; 

 stems sub-solitary or tufted, erect, leafy, 1 to 4 ft. high, simple, bright 

 green; lower internodes often swollen and corm-like; sheaths glauees- 

 cent, striate, smooth; ligule brownish, IJ to 2 lines long, abruptly 

 acute; blades 2J to 3 lines wide, minutely seabrid, especially on the 

 edges, glaucescent; panicle IJ to 9 in. long, about 3 lines wide, rough 

 to the touch, not feathery; spikelets about IJ lines long including the 

 awns, rigid, pale green or purplish; bracts about 1 line long, hyaline 

 except the nerves; nerves 3, converging above into a divergent, 

 scabrous mucro about J line long, the central ner^'c pectinate-ciliate; 

 margins of the bract abruptly truncate below the mucro; bractlet 

 about 1 line long, broad, completely enfolding the narrow palea, 

 faintly 5 to 7-nerved and toothed; pftlea faintly 2-nerved, emarginate; 

 anthers about 1 line long and yellow before shedding the pollen, 

 afterwards shrunken and lavender-colored. 



Introduced into N. America as a forage grass, and now extensively 



