GENERA OF GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 
175 
tance below, or rarely with a single terminal spike. Species about 
six, in the warm regions of the Eastern Hemisphere, one a common 
introduced weed in America. 
Type species : Eleusine coracana Gaertn. 
Eleusine Gaertn., Fruct. and Sem. 1: 7, pi. 1, f. 11. 1788. Two species are 
described. E. coracana and E. indica. The first, being figured, is selected as the 
type. 
Eleusine indica (L.) Gaertn. (fig. 103) is a common garden and 
roadside weed throughout the warmer parts of America, extending 
northward to Illinois and Massachusetts. It is usually spreading or 
prostrate, with two to several spikes, or rarely one. This species is 
sometimes called goose-grass and yard-grass. 
The type species of the genus, Eleusine coracana Gaertn., is culti- 
vated in the Tropics of the Old World for the seed, which is used for 
human food by the poor or primitive people. It differs from 
E. indica in its larger size, stouter, often incurved spikes, and globose 
seed. 
85. Dactyloctenium Willd. 
Spikelets 3 to 5 flowered, compressed, sessile and closely imbricate, 
in tw T o rows along one side of the rather narrow flat rachis, the end 
projecting in a point beyond the spikelets; rachilla disarticulating 
above the first glume and between the florets ; glumes somewhat un- 
equal, broad, 1-nerved, the first persistent upon the rachis, the second 
mucronate or short-awnecl below the tip, deciduous; lemmas firm, 
broad, keeled, acuminate or short-awned, 3-nerved, the lateral nerves 
indistinct, the upper floret reduced; the palea about as long as the 
lemma ; seed subglobose, ridged or wrinkled, inclosed in a thin, early- 
disappearing pericarp. 
Annual or perennial grasses, with flat blades and two to several 
short thick spikes, digitate and widely spreading at the summit of 
the culms. Species three, in the warmer parts of the Eastern Hemi- 
sphere, one a common weed in tropical America. 
Type species: Cynosurus aegypiius L. 
Dactyloctenium Willd., Enum. PI. 1029. 1809. Willdenow describes but one 
species, D. aegyptiacum, based on Cynosurus aegyptius L. 
Our only species is Dactyloctenium aegyptium (L.) Eicht. 
(Z>. aegyptiacum Willd.) (fig. 104), a tropical weed which extends 
northward to New York and Illinois. It is a prostrate annual with 
2 to 5 spikes, often forming mats rooting at the nodes. Sometimes 
called crowfoot grass. 
86. Capriola Adans. 
(Cynodon Rich.) 
Spikelets 1 -flowered, awnless, sessile in two rows along one side of 
a slender continuous rachis, the rachilla disarticulating above the 
glumes and prolonged behind the palea as a slender naked bristle, 
