GRASS FAMILY. 63 



Spikelets of - 1 to 3 perfect flowers; bractlet apparently many-nerved below (at least when 

 dry), with a broad, scarious margin above; lowest internodes swollen and corm-like; 

 ligule brown and pubescent or scabrid below; bractlet 3 to 3 l / 2 lines long, obtuse, 

 emarginate 3. M. calif ornica. 



1. M. imperfecta Trin. Seexder Melic-orass. Stems slender, erect or 

 drooping, 1 to 3 ft. high; lowest internodes not corm-like; leaf-blades 1 line 

 wide; panicle slender, linear, 6 to 12 in. long; branches in distant whorls, sev- 

 eral at a node, erect or sometimes in anthesis spreading, very unequal, the long- 

 est mostly equaling or exceeding the internodes, spikelet-bearing from about the 

 middle upwards; spikelets \\'-> to 2 lines long, 1-flowered with 1 or 2 empty 

 bractlets above it, rarely 2-flowered; bracts nearly ovate, shorter than the 

 nearest bractlet, obtuse, lower 3, upper 5-nerved; margins broadly scarious; 

 bractlet acute; rudiment short-pedicellate. 



Shaded hillsides in the Coast Ranges: Mt. Tamalpais; San Francisco; 

 Loma Prieta ; Oakland and northward and southward. Apr. 



2. M. torreyana Scribn. Torrey's Melic-grass. Stems slender, erect 

 or drooping, 1 to 3 ft. high ; lowest internodes not corm-like ; blades about 

 1 ] -j lines wide; panicle slender, linear, 3 to 7 in. long; branches few r at a node, 

 very unequal, slender, erect, flexuous, often long and naked below, bearing 

 few spikelets near the ends; spikelets 2 to 3 lines long; bracts acute, the upper 

 exceeding or equaling the bractlets; bractlets hairy; rudiment long pedicellate. 



Apparently peculiar to the Coast Ranges (Conn Valley, Ukiah) and Sierra 

 Nevada foothills. Apr. -May. 



3. M. californica Scribn. California Melic-grass. Stems erect, iy 2 to 

 4 ft. high; lower internodes corm-like; ligule brownish and pubescent or 

 scabrid on the outside below; panicle 6 to 9 in. long, strict; branches few at a 

 node, usually equaling or exceeding the internode, spikelet-bearing to the 

 base; spikelets 4 to 5 lines long, of 2 to 3 perfect flowers; bracts thin, 

 obtuse; bractlet 3 to 3% lines long, apparently many-nerved below at least 

 when dry, margin above scarious, broad, obtuse, emarginate. — (At. bulbosa 

 Thurb. in Bot. Cal., not of Geyer.) 



Dry foothills of the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges. Apr. -June. 



31. PLEUROPOGON R. Br. Side-beard. 



Blender annuals. Leaf-blades flat, together with the sheaths thin ami 

 characterized by cross-veins which unite the longitudinal ones and with them 

 form narrow, rectangular spaces. Inflorescence a simple, elongated, secund 

 raceme; spikelets distant, shortly pedicellate, long, narrow, 8 to 14-flowered, 

 compressed. Bracts not reaching to the apex of the nearest bractlet, unequal, 

 membranaceous, awnless; lower 1-nerved, upper larger, 3-nerved, the lateral 

 nerves faint. Rachilla jointed between the flowers and breaking up at 

 maturity, undulate, smooth, its internodes less than ' L > the length of the 

 bractlets. Bractlet at first herbaceous, becoming chartaceo-coriaceous, scarious 

 and prominently 5 to 7-nerved, narrowed below to a rounded, smooth callus, 

 apes 2-toothed or truncate, the mid-nerve prolonged into a mucro or short, 

 straight, rigid awn; palea 2-nerved ami with two winged toothed keels; 

 margins infolded. Stamens '■'>. Scales short, fleshy, connate. Ovary smooth, 

 ovoid, stipitate. Achene somewhat compressed, strongly furrowed, hard; 

 pericarp loose, 2-horned Avith the remains of the style-bases. (Greek pleuron, 

 side, pogon, beard, from the arrangemenl of the awns nt the si<h-s of the 

 spikeL 



1. P. californicum (Nees) Vasey. California Side-beabd. Stems Btout- 

 ish but weak, IK, to 3 ft. long, tufted, simple, smooth; lower nodes rooting; 



