BRASS FAMILY. 53 



brownish, long-acuminate, 2-fid; that of each flower awned; awns protruding 

 % line or more. 



Naturalized from Europe, now common on old cattle ranges from Humboldt 

 Co. to Monterey. May- Aug. 



2. A. capillaris Host. Fixe Hair-grass. Resembling A. caryophyllea 

 but the panicle much more open; spikelets less numerous and not tufted, only 

 1 line long; pedicels longer and sometimes glabrous; bractlet of the lower flower 

 awnless, of the upper awned; awns hygroscopic. 



Naturalized from southern Europe: Marin and Humboldt cos., and probably 

 occurring elsewhere. 



18. DESCHAMPSIA Beauv. Tickle-grass. 

 Panicle mostly open (rarely contracted), branches slender. Spikelets small, 

 2-flowered; flowers both perfect, somewhat distant, lower sub-sessile, upper pedi- 

 cellate; rachilla jointed, hairy, prolonged beyond the insertion of the upper 

 liower-enclosing bractlet as a hairy bristle which is sometimes terminated by 

 an empty bractlet. Bracts equaling or exceeding the uppermost flower-enclos- 

 ing bractlet, thin membranaceous, 1 to 3-nerved, keeled, acute, the margins and 

 apex thinly scarious. Bractlet membranaceous or nearly hyaline, 2-toothed or 

 cleft, or truncate and denticulate, with a fine dorsal awn below the middle; 

 palea narrow, prominently 2-nerved, often 2-toothed. Stamens 3. (Dr. Des- 

 champs, a French physician and naturalist of St. Omer, naturalist to the 

 La Perouse relief expedition. Grasses with the shining spikelets of Trisetum 

 and Aira, usually smaller than in the former, larger than in the latter, with 

 which genus they were formerly united; stems usually stouter than in Aira.) 



Stems stout, from a tufted rootstock; bracts barely equaling, and mostly shorter than 

 the whole spikelet; the lower 1-nerved; panicle contracted, erect or somewhat 

 drooping, dense and somewhat spikelike; branches short, stoutish; awn stout, straight. 



1. D. holciformis. 

 Stems slender, weak; bracts exceeding the uppermost bractlet. 

 Perennial; panicle slender and spikelike, mostly nodding. 



Panicle-branches several at a node, very unequal in length, mostly appressed, bearing 

 many spikelets; spikelets 1^ to 2 lines long; bractlet obscurely nerved or nerve- 

 less ; achene grooved 2. D. elongata. 



Panicle racemose, 1 to 2 in. long; branches appressed, with few spikelets. 



Diminutive plant, 3 to 4 in. high 2. D. elongata. 



Annual; panicle effuse, erect, its branches mostly in 3s below, in pairs or solitary above, 

 distant, mostly spreading and bearing few (about 5) spikelets at the ends; spikelets 

 2 l / 2 to 4J/2 lines long; bractlet 5-nerved 3. D. calycina. 



1. D. holciformis Presl. California Tickle-grass. Perennial; rootstock 

 forming large, dense tufts; stems 2 to 5 ft. high, stout, arising from a dense 

 tuft of involute leaves; ligule 1 to 2 lines long; panicle contracted, dense, erect 

 or somewhat drooping, 6 to 10 in. long; branches many at a node, Bub-erect, 

 the longest iy 2 to 2% in. long, branched and spikelet-bearing almost to the 

 base; spikelets 2y 2 to 3 lines long, short-pedieeled, usually purplish-tinted below, 

 yellowish to brown above; bracts barely equaling, and mostly shorter than the 

 whole spikelet, acute; bractlet membranaceous, silky-hairy at base, rather regu- 

 larly 4-toothed ; awn stout, about 1% lines long, inserted near the base of the 

 bractlet, usually shortly exserted; anthers 1 line long, purplish. — (Aira holci- 

 formis Steud.) 



Wet meadows and borders of streams: Oakland Hills; San Francisco; Pt. 

 Reyes; Mark West Ck. Apr.-July. 



2. D. elongata (Hook.) Monro. Slender Hair-grass. Perennial; stems 

 very slender and weak, 8 to 24 in. high or more, from a dense tuft of 



