No. 1. 

 IMPERATA HOOKERI Rupr. in Anderson Proc. Stockholm Acad. 1855,160. 



Plant perennial, rather coarse; few culms in a stool, on short-jointed rootstocks £ 

 inch in diameter. 



Culms erect, simple, smooth, terete, 2 to 3 feet high. 



Leaves from the base numerous with rather scarious, smooth sheaths and flap 

 blades 6 to 12 inches long. Leaves of culm 1 ; sheaths smooth, close, longer than the 

 internodes ; blades flat, slightly scabrid on the margins and lower surface, slender- 

 pointed, 3 to 5 inches long, or the upper short and appressed; ligule membranaceous, 

 truncate, 1 line long, ciliate with longer hairs at the sides. 



Infloresence an erect, white-hairy, spike-like panicle 6 to 16 inches long and 1 inch 

 in diameter ; branches mostly in threes or fours, ascending or appressed, many-flowered 

 throughout. 



SpiTcelets 1-flowered, nearly sessile, narrowly lanceolate, 1£ lines long ; empty glumes 

 covered with fine white hairs 4 to 6 lines long ; first glume lance-ovate, obtuse, membrana- 

 ceous on margins and above, indistinctly 5 to 7-nerved, 1^ lines long; second glume like 

 the first but \ line shorter ; floral glume ovate, acute, membranaceous, smooth, 1-nerved, 

 1^ lines long; palet oblong, irregularly dentate, § line long; grain obovate, trans- 

 lucent amber-color, \ line long, falling with spikelet entire; style slender with two 

 prominent, brown, feathered stigmas, long-exserted, making the woolly panicle ap- 

 pear specked with brown. 



Plate I; a, empty glumes enlarged about 12 times; b, floral glume; c, palet; rf, 

 grain with style and stigmas. 



Southern California, Arizona and western Texas. Probably a useful agricultural 

 grass for hot, arid districts. 



