No. 85. 

 POA UNILATERALIS Scribner sp. nov. 



Plant perennial, tufted or in small bunches, from a strong rootstock. 



Culms erect, or decumbent at the base, smooth, leafy nearly to the panicle, 10 to 

 20 inches tall, thickened or almost bulbous. 



Leaves from the base numerous, with loose, scarious sheaths and flat, conduplicate 

 or involute blades, slender, thin, flexible, 2 to 5 inches long, less than 1 line wide : 

 leaves of the culm 2 or 3 ; sheaths nearly smooth, striate, rather loose, usually open 

 at the throat, shorter than the internodes ; blades 1 to 3 inches long, ligule attenuate, 

 acute, 2 to 3 lines long. 



Inflorescence a densely flowered, secund, spike-like panicle l'to 3 inches long, £ 

 inch thick; rays scabrous, mostly in twos or threes at the 8 to 10 nodes, 1 inch long or 

 less, erect, crowded with appressed spikelets. 



Spikelets oblong, compressed, 5 lines long, 5- to 7-flo wered with a small rudiment ; 

 empty glumes ovate, acute, carinate, hispid on the keel, minutely serrulate on the 

 scarious margins, 1- to 3-nerved, 1| to 3 lines long, shorter than the lower florets; floral 

 glume ovate, acute, hispid on the keels, pubescent at the base, not webbed, 2 lines 

 long; palet linear,- emarginate, pubescent on the keels, nearly equaling the glume; 

 stamens 3 with exserted anthers, grain linear, reddish brown, semitranslucent, 1 line 

 long; lodicules less than £ line long; internode of rachilla thick, pubescent, \ line long. 



Plate LXXXY ; a, pistillate spikelet ; b, staminate floret. 



California, from San Francisco southward along the coast. The species is imper- 

 fectly dioecious, with little difference between the sexes, except that the staminate 

 plants have flatter and more open spikelets with thinner glumes. It may be readily 

 distinguished from P. macrantha and P. Douglasii by its narrow panicle of smaller 

 spikelets and by the slender, flexible leaves. The spike is often more or less one-sided; 

 hence the specific name. 



