88 Bulletin VII. 1. 



lated above the empty glumes and produced behind the palea, bear- 

 ing one or more rudimentary awned empty glumes. Outer empty 

 glumes two, unequal, lanceolate, acute, somewhat keeled. Flower- 

 ing glume narrow or broad, one to three-nerved, acute or broadly 

 obtuse, truncate, emarginate, or two-lobed at the apex, often cili- 

 ate on the back or margins, the middle nerve nearly always pro- 

 duced into a slender awn. Grain free within the fruiting glume. 

 Usually perennial grasses, with fiat leaves and showy or attractive 

 inflorescence of usually many digitate spikes. 



Species about forty, widely distributed throughout the warmer 

 countries of the world. Several are cultivated for ornament. 



I. Chloris verticillata Xutt. 



A perennial, usually about a foot high, with flattened stems and 

 leaf-sheaths, narrow and abruptly acute leaves and numerous slen- 

 der, spreading spikes, which are in approximate whorls or verti- 

 cels near the summit of the stems. Spikelets one to one and a 

 half lines long; lower empty glumes acuminate; both the floral 

 and upper empty glumes awned; awns two to four lines long. 



This grass is native to Kansas and regions to the Southwest. 

 It is only rarely seen in cultivation. Chloris elegans and C. barbata 

 are better known, but not more ornamental, species. 



37. GYMNOPOGON Beauv. Agrost. 41, t. 9, f. 3 (1812.) 



Spikelets one-flowered, subsessile, rather distant along one side 

 of a slender xiliform rachis, forming slender unilateral spikes, 

 these numerous and scattered along a common peduncle; rachilla 

 articulated above the empty glumes and produced beyond the 

 floret as a slender, often awned rudiment. Empty glumes two, 

 very narrow, subequal, as long as or longer than the floral glumes. 

 Flowering glume broader, three-nerved, bearing a slender, straight 

 awn below the two-cleft apex. Grain enclosed within the rigid 

 fruiting glume, free. Perennial grasses, with short, rather broad 

 and rigid leaves, and numerous slender spikes, which are at first 

 erect, finally divaricate-spreading or reflexed. 



Species six, one in Ceylon, the rest American. Two species in 

 the Southern States. 



I. Gymnopogon racemosus Beauv. Naked Beard-grass. 

 Plate XXX. Figure 117. 



x\ loosely-tufted ascending or erect grass with short and broad 

 leaves and numerous (fifteen to thirty) slender and widely-spread- 

 ing spikes irregularly j-cattered along the common rachis. Sheaths 

 short, smooth; ligule very short; leaf-blade one to two inches long, 

 three to six lines broad, glabrous, acute. Spikes five to eight 

 inches long, flower-bearing to the base. Spikelets rather distant, 

 about three lines long, exceeding the flowering glume. Awn of 

 the flowering glume slender, about three lines long, that of the 

 rudiment shorter. 



A common grass in open pine woods, and in sandy soil along 

 thicket borders. Of no aoriciiltural value. 



