No. 43. 



CALAMAGROSTIS PURPURASCENS E. Br. in Richardson, Bot. 

 Appx. Franklin's Voy. 3. 



Plant perennial, tufted, with rather coarse woolly roots. 



Culms erect, simple, smooth and shining or slightly hispid near the nodes, 2 to 2£ 

 feet high. 



Leaves of culm usually 3; sheaths striate, hispidulous, or nearly smooth, much 

 shorter than the internocles; blades flat, involute toward the attenuate points, flexible, 

 hispidulous, 6 to 10 inches long; ligule lacerate or fimbriate, obtuse, 2 lines long. 



Inflorescence a closely flowered, erect, narrow panicle, 3 to 4 inches long, J inch 

 thick; rays crowded in 10 to 12 clusters, appressed, unequal, f inch long or less, the 

 longer spikelet-bearing beyond the middle, the shorter crowded with spikelets to the 

 base. 



Spikelets on pedicels half as long as themselves, turgid, acute, 2 lines long; empty 

 glumes lanceolate, acute, smooth, purple at apex or throughout; first glume carinate, 

 1-nerved; second glume convex, distinctly 3-nerved, 2 lines long; floral glume oblong, 

 erose at the obtuse apex, smooth, 4-nerved, 1^ lines long; awn attached £ way from 

 the base, 2 lines long; hairs of the rudiment unequal, half as long as the glume, those 

 of the callus scanty and shorter; palet oblong, obtuse, thin, 2-nerved, 1£ lines long. 



Plate XLIII; a, spikelet enlarged 7 times; b, empty glumes; c, floral glume, side 

 view ; d 7 palet, dorsal view. 



Alaska and British America, extending south in the Cascade Mountains to Wash- 

 ington. 



