GENERA OF GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 
153 
The single species (fig. 87) is a tufted grass about a foot high, 
found on open or rocky soil at middle altitudes from Colorado to 
central Mexico. It is a palatable grass, sufficiently abundant in places 
to be of importance. Until recent 
years the species was included in 
Sporobolus. 
71. Crypsis Ait. 
Spikelets 1 -flowered, the rachilla 
disarticulating below the glumes; 
glumes about equal, narrow, acute; 
lemma broad, thin, awnless; palea 
similar to the lemma, about as long, 
2-nerved, readily splitting between 
the nerves; fruit a utricle, the seed 
free from the thin pericarp. 
A spreading annual, with capitate 
inflorescences in the axils of broad 
bracts, these being enlarged sheaths 
with short rigid blades. Species 
one, in the Mediterranean region; 
sparingly introduced into the United 
States. 
Type species: Schoenus aculeatus L. 
Crypsis Ait., Hort. Kew. 1: 48. 1789. 
A single species is mentioned, with two 
varieties or forms, a (the equivalent of 
the species), based on Schoenus aculeatus 
L., and /3, based on Phleum schoenoides 
The first is the type. 
Bentham and Hooker 1 state 
that the spikelet has four 
glumes and no palea. Hackel 2 
states that the palea is 1-nerved. 
Our specimens show an evi- 
dently 2-nerved palea. 
Fig. 87. — Blepharonettron tricholepis. Plant, X \ ', spike- 
let and floret, X 5. 
Gen. PI. 3: 1139. 1883. 
Engl, and Prantl, Pflanzenfam. 2 2 : 48. 1887^ 
