IN TENNESSEE. 



233 



Boutelona. 



BOUTELOUA, Lagasca.--(-MusM Grass.) 



Spikelets crowded and closely sessile 

 in two rows on one side of a flattened 

 rhaehis, comprising one perfect flower 

 below and one or more sterile or rudi- 

 mentary flowers. Glumes convex keel- 

 ed, the lower one shorter. Perfect flow- 

 . er with the 3-nerved lower palet 8- 

 1 toothed, or cleft at the apex,- the 2-nerv- 

 ed upper palet 2-toothed ; the teeth, at 

 least of the former, pointed or subulate-, 

 awned. Stamens 3, anthers orange col- 

 ored or red. 



A portion of the compound spike of the natural size, (1); and a spike- 

 let displayed and magnified, (2); the flowers raised out of the glumes. 



BOUTELOUA CUKTIPENDULA, Gray.--(JBorse Shoe Orats). 

 Culms tufted from a perennial root stalk which spreads in a semi-circu- 

 lar form like a horse-shoe. LeaveB narrow, spikes one-half inch or less 

 in length, nearly sessile. Flowers scabrous. It grows abundantly in 

 the pine barrens of Middle Tennessee, (Lavergne, Smyrna), and is one 

 of the best pasture grasses. 



MUHLENBERGIA, Schreh.~(Drop-seed Grass.) 



Spikelets one-flowered, in contracted or rarfily in 

 open panicles. Glumes mostly ovate, acute or brist- 

 ly pointed, persistent; the lower rather smaller or 

 minute. Flower Yery short, stalked or sessile in the 

 glumes ; the palets usually minutely bearded at the 

 base, herbaceous, deciduous with the enclosed grain, 

 often equal, the lower 3-nerved, mucronate or awned 

 at the apex. Stamens three. 



The most species of this genus look like a diminu- 

 tive decumbent cane, from the dry, somewhat stiff 

 aspect of the leaves and the hard and polished, really 

 cane-like condition of the stems. 



A. magnified closed spikelet of Muhlenbergia syl- 

 vatica, (1); the same with the open flower raised out 

 of the glumes, (3); its minute and unequal glumes 

 more magnified (4); and an open spikelet of the 

 same, (5). 



