No. 3. 

 PANICUM CILIATISSIMUM Buckley. 



Rootstock and roots slender. 



Culms varying from erect at the ends of the rootstock to procumbent and even 

 creeping, glabrous, except a ring of renexed hairs at the nodes; erect stems from a 

 few inches to 2 feet high, commonly with short sterile branches, slender, the inter- 

 nodes sometimes 3 inches long; creeping stems long, thicker, profusely branching, 

 with shorter internodes, rooting at the nodes. 



Leaves with long-ciliate, usually sparingly hirsute sheaths, and flat, smooth, or 

 sometimes slightly hirsute blades tapering from base to apex. Sheaths of the 

 erect stems frequently distant, those of the creeping stems shorter but mostly con- 

 tiguous. Blades of the creeping steins seldom exceeding 1| inches, those of the 

 erect plants usually longer. 



Inflorescence a small narrow panicle 2| inches long or reduced to a few spike- 

 lets, terminating the culm, exsert-stipitate in the erect plant (in creeping plants 

 terminating short axillary branches as well, and partly sheathed, all intermediate 

 stages being found), bearing the spikelets terminal or laterally sessile on the flat 

 minutely pubescent branches of the panicle. 



Spikelets 1^ to 2 lines long, oblong, acuminate, slightly obcompressed. 



Glumes 4; 3 lower membranaceous; first lanceolate, acuminate, glabrous, 3- to 

 5-nerved, nearly as long as the spikelet; second ovate, short-acuminate, pubescent, 

 sometimes minutely villous-ciliate near the margins, many (about ll-)-nerved; third 

 similar to the last, but glabrous down the middle, most of the nerves of that area 

 obsolete; fourth (flowering) glume coriaceous, indistinctly few-nerved, minutely 

 corrugated, bluntly acute. 



Flowers 2. Lower reduced to a hyaline, 2-nerved, oblong palet subtended by the 

 third glume; or sometimes with 3 stamens. Upper hermaphrodite; palet of the 

 same texture as its glume, indistinctly 2-nerved; glume closely embracing the 

 grain; stamens 3. 



Plate III; 1, erect stem; 2, creeping stem; a spikelet opened to show the 

 parts. 



