No. 29. 

 COTTEA PAPPOPHOROIDES Kunth. 



Plant perennial from a short, scaly rootstock, light green or often purplish in 

 the infloresence and lower sheaths. 



Culms loosely tufted at base, erect or somewhat spreading, branching, hollow, 

 terete, pubescent, 1 to 2 feet tall. 



Leaves; radical and from radical shoots few and small; of culm 7 to 10, sheaths 

 close, minutely cinerous pubescent, nearly equaling or usually exceeding the inter- 

 nodes; blade flat or involute toward the tapering point, somewhat scabrous on 

 both sides, 1| to 2 lines wide, 3 to 6 inches long; ligule a minute hairy fringe. 



Inflorescence a rather close, or becoming loose, lanceolate or narrowly pyra- 

 midal panicle, 3 to 6 inches long, peduncle but little exserted, rachis pubescent, 

 nearly terete ; branches mostly alternate, flower-bearing nearly to the base, slightly 

 spreading, 1 to 2 inches long, bearing the spikelets on short pubescent pedicels. 



Spikelets obovate, flat, 7- to 10-flowered, 3 to 4 lines long; empty glumes oblong 

 or oblong-ovate, nearly equal, 2 lines long; first glume irregulai'ly 3-toothed at 

 apex, about 13-nerved, pubescent on back, margins hyaline; second glume acutish 

 or short awned, about 9-nerved, with hyaline margins, less pubescent than first 

 glume; floral glumes obovate, 1 to l-£ lines long, pubescent especially at base, about 

 15-nerved, cleft above into 11 narrow divisions, the outer more deeply cleft, and 

 ciliate on the margins, with long white hairs, each terminating in a hispid awn -£to 

 li lines long; palet lanceolate, with 2 pubescent nerves continuing and connivent 

 about the cleft apex, narrow hyaline margins infolded, 1^ lines long. 



Grain, dull whitish yellow, oblong, slightly curved, falling with the disartic- 

 ulated spikelet or easily escaping free. 



Plate XXIX; a, spikelet; b, empty glumes; c, floral ghimes; c 1 , part of apex 

 of floral glume enlarged; a, palet; d\ apex of palet. The figure b does not show 

 the full number of nerves. 



Texas to Arizona and Mexico. 



