No. 8. 

 STIPA CO RON AT A Thurb. Bot. Oal. ii. 287. 



' Plant coarse, perennial, tufted; roots coarse and strong. 



Culm erect, terete, minutely hispid, naked above, 3 to 6 feet high, J inch thick at 

 base where it is clothed with the remains of several weather-worn sheaths. 



Leaves from the base with rather scarious, smooth sheaths 3 to 6 inches long- and 

 blades fiat or involute with slender, convolute points, smooth below, hispid above, 3 to 

 5 lines wide at base, 2 to 3 feet long. Leaves of culm 3 to 5 ; sheaths smooth except the 

 ciliate throat, equaling or exceeding the internodes; blades like those of the radical 

 leaves 1 to 2 feet long; ligule, lacerate or fringed, ^ line long. 



Inflorescence a narrow, rather dense, virgate panicle, 12 to 16 inches long, at first 

 spike-like and included in the upper sheath ; branches mostly in fascicled clusters of 

 4 or more, 2 to 3 inches long, erect and bearing pedicellate spikelets to the base, or 

 the lower branches fewer and spikelet bearing only beyond the middle. 



Spikelets lanceolate, turgid, 8 to 10 lines long; empty glumes appressed, lanceo- 

 late, slender-pointed, herbaceous below, often purple or purplish with membranaceous 

 margins; first glume 3-nerved, 8 to 10 lines long; second glume a line shorter and 

 5-nerved ; stipe curved, acute, white, bearded above, £ line long; floret spindle-shaped, 

 4 lines long, § line thick; floral glume clothed with silky white hair a line long, longer 

 and somewhat tufted at the apex, obscurely 5-nerved; awn often purplish, twisted, 

 nearly naked, slightly bent; palet oblong, lacerate at the obtuse apex, 1£ to 2 lines 

 long; lodicules minute; anthers naked; grain spindle-shaped, widest below, reddish, 

 nearly opaque, 3 lines long, £ line thick. 



Plate VIII; a, spikelet dissected and enlarged about twice. 



Arizona and southern California in the valleys or lower levels near water. One 

 of the largest of North American Stipas. 



