No. 84. 



POA THURBERIANA (0. Ktze.) Vasey; Panicularia Thurberiana O. Ktze. 

 Eev. Gen. PL ii. 783 (1891). 



Plant perennial, pale green throughout, tufted ; roots fibrous. 



Culms erect, clothed at the base with scarious sheaths, leafy to the panicle, 2 to 3 

 feet tall. 



Leaves from the base numerous, with smooth, striate sheaths 3 to 5 inches long, and 

 slender, scabrid blades, conduplicate or loosely involute, 1 line wide and 4 to 12 inches 

 long: leaves of the culm usually 4; sheaths striate, smooth, close, open above, exceed- 

 ing the long internodes; blades 3 to 6 inches long; ligule subacute, wider than the 

 blade, decurrent, 2 lines long. 



Inflorescence an erect, narrow, contracted panicle 6 to 12 inches long; rays mostly 

 in twos or threes at the 10 to 15 nodes, scabrid like the axis, erect, spikelet-bearing 

 nearly to the base, or the longer ones naked below. 



Spi~kelets small, H to 2 lines long, with one perfect floret and a rather largo, rudi- 

 ment, or 2 florets and a very small rudiment; empty glumes ovate, subacute, thin, 

 nearly smooth, the first 1-nerved, 1 line long, the second 3-nerved below and % line 

 longer than the first, each about -§- as long as the adjacent florets; floral glume broadly 

 lance-oblong, minutely erose at the obtuse or rounded, membranaceous apex, nearly 

 smooth, 5-nerved, 1^ lines long; pa-let puberulent on the 2 keels, about equaling the 

 glumes; stamens 3, with short filaments and included anthers; stigmas small, sessile. 



Plate LXXXIV; a, spikelet with 2 perfect flowers and a rudiment; b. floret and 

 rudiment of 1-flowered spikelet; c, first empty glume; d, second empty glume; e, floral 

 glume: /, palet inclosing the ovary, ventral view. 



California, in wet meadows in the valleys of the Sierra Nevada, California. De- 

 scribed in Bot. Cal. ii. 310 as Atropis pauciflora, and changed by Otto Kuntze, 

 Eev. Gen. PI. ii. 783, to Panicularia Thurberiana. It is plain to me, however, that 

 this and some other species which are placed in Atropis by Prof. Tkurber in Bot. Cal., 

 are true Pom and should be restored to that genus. Dr. Kuntze's name was given on 

 the supposition that it was an Atropis, which he thinks is properly called Panicularia- 

 and as the specific uame had already been appropriated in that genus, it was neces- 

 sary to adopt another. As the name pauciflora has been employed for a Poa by 

 Ecemer and Schultes, it would seem that Kuntze's name should be adopted for the 

 species under Poa, 



