GENERA OF GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 71 
shaped body back of the upper floret, and the glumes and fertile 
lemmas are conspicuously scarious. In many of the western species 
the sterile lemmas are small and narrow, forming an inconspicuous 
body at the top of the rachilla, and the glumes and fertile lemmas are 
either broad or rather narrow with less conspicuous scarious margins. 
In M. imperfecta Trim, of California, there is but one fertile floret. 
One group of species with narrow, scarcely flattened spikelets and 
little-differentiated upper florets has been segregated as a section 
under the name Bromelica. The awned species of the genus, M. aris- 
tata Thurb. (fig. 32), M. smithii (Porter) Vasey, and M. purpu- 
rascens (Torr.) Hitchc, belong to this group. The inflorescence of 
Melica is usually narrow, a simple panicle or even a raceme, but in 
M. smithii, M. geyeri Munro, and M. nit ens it may be an open but 
rather few-flowered panicle. The corms produced by many species 
are characteristic and have suggested the name onion grass often 
applied to them. The genus is distinguished from allied genera by 
the scarious margins of the glumes and lemmas. The awned species 
of the section Bromelica approach closely to Bromus. 
The species of Melica, commonly called melic grasses, are in gen- 
eral excellent forage grasses. They are, however, not gregarious, 
and do not ordinarily furnish any large proportion of the forage of 
the ranges. The two most important species on the ranges are M. 
bella Piper and M. spectabilis Scribn. They have broad spikelets, 
bulbous bases, and narrow panicles, the first with erect pedicels, the 
second with slender recurved pedicels. 
25. Anthochloa Nees. 
Spikelets few-flowered, subsessile, on a simple axis and imbricate, 
the rachilla disarticulating above the glumes and between the florets ; 
glumes (in our species) wanting; lemmas thin-membranaceous, flabel- 
liform, whitish, petallike, many nerved; palea narrower than the 
lemma, hyaline. 
Low annuals or perennials, with close spikes. Species three; two 
in the Andes, one in California. 
Type species : Anthochloa lepidula Nees. 
Anthochloa Nees ; Meyen, Reise um Erde 2 : 14. 1835. One species men- 
tioned. The description is meager and scarcely constitutes technical publica- 
tion. It is as follows : " Wir sammelten hier ein sehr kleines aber ausserst 
schones Gras, das die neue Gattung Anthochloa bildet und von Herrn Nees v. 
Esenbeck Anthochloa lepidula genannt worden ist (Anthochloa genus proximum 
Melicae, differt glumis Drevioribus, valvula superiori quadrifida !)." The genus 
is first described by Endlicher 1 but no species is mentioned. Remy 2 describes 
the genus and one species (A. rupestris) . 
Stapfia Davy, Erythea 6: 110, pi. 3, 1898, not Stapfia Chodat, 1897. One 
species described, 8. colusana. 
Neostapfia Davy, Erythea 7 : 43. 1899. A new name for Stapfia Davy. 
Davyella Hack., Oesterr. Bot. Zeitschr. 49: 133. 1899. A new name proposed 
for Stapfia Davy, not Chodat. 
^en. PI. 99. 1836. 
2 Ann. Sci. Nat. Bot. III. 6:347. 1846. 
