GRASS FAMILY. 57 



epikelets J in. long; bracts varying from glabrous to strongly ciliate 

 on the keels; anthers yellow, 2 lines long. 



Common along the borders of salt-marshes around San Francisco 

 and San Pablo Bays, usually, if not always, within reach of tidal 

 water: near Sausalito; San Rafael; Alameda; West Berkeley; etc. 

 Aug .-Dec. 



25. BECKMANNIA Host. 



Leaf-blades flat. Panicle long, narrow, erect, dense, composed of 

 several approximate, erect, racemed spikes. Spikelets crowded in 2 

 rows, on the 2 lower sides of the sub-triangular panicle-branches, 

 imbricate, compressed, 2 (or by abortion) 1-flowered, 1 to IJ lines 

 long. Bracts broadly inflated and somewhat boat-shaped, laterally 

 compressed, sub-equal, obtuse or abruptly pointed; margins scarious. 

 Bractlet narrow, concave-keeled, membranaceous, 5-nerved; palea 

 hyaline, 2-keeled, nearly as long as the bractlet. Stamens 3. (In 

 honor of J. Beckmann, 1739-1811, the author of a "Lexicon 

 Botanicum.") 



1. B. erucaeformis (L.) Host. Slough-grass. Stems 2 to 3 

 ft. high, stoutish, strict, solitary or somewhat tufted, erect from a 

 slightly decumbent base, leafy; sheaths slightly rough; ligule elon- 

 gated; blades 4 to 8 in. long, 3 to 4 lines wide, roughish; panicle 8 

 to 12 in. long; branches solitary or in twos or threes, soraetimes again 

 shortly branched, densely clothed with spikelets in 2 rows ; spikelets 

 about 1^ lines long, nearly orbicular or broadly obovate; bracts with 

 3 principal nerves, and some transverse ones, dark green on the keel, 

 paler and somewhat wrinkled transversely; bractlet pointed, the point 

 often exserted. 



Somewhat resembling a Panicum. Sloughs, borders of streams 

 and wet bottom lands in mountain regions from Santa Clara Co. 

 northward: between Bolinas and Olema; Kenwood; Conn Valley; 

 near Willits. Apr.-July. 



Teibe 7. Festuceae. Fescue Teibe. 



Inflorescence paniculate or racemose, the racemes sometimes almost 

 spieate on account of the very short pedicels of the spikelets. Spike- 

 lets 2 to many-flowered (rarely 1-flowered in Melica, Kceleria, 

 Festuca and Lamarckia); flowers perfect or the upperrnost imperfect 

 (the lowest imperfect in Phragmites); in Lamarckia one spikelet at 

 each node is perfect, the others being sterile; in Distichlis, some 

 species of Poa and sometimes in Phragmites the flowers are dioecious 

 or polygamo-dioecious. Bracts rarely reaching the apex of the nearest 

 bractlet. Bractlet in ours entire or 2-toothed or 2-cleft, awnless or 

 with 1 (in ours never 2 to 5) awns; awn straight, terminal at the 

 apex or from between the teeth, never dorsal nor bent and twisted as 

 in Avenese and Agrostideae. Palea 2-keeled. 



A. Kacbilla or bractlet, at least that of the perfect flower, clothed with long, 

 erect hairs which envelop the latter; bractlet (in ours) thin-membranaceous or 

 hyaline, 3-nerved; tall, reed-llke grasses. 



