178 BULLETIN 772, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Perennial, usually low grasses, with creeping stolons or rhizomes, 
short blades, and several slender spikes digitate at the summit of 
the upright flowering stems. Species six, of which three are Aus- 
tralian, one species widely dis- 
tributed in the warmer regions 
of the globe. 
species : 
Panicum dacty- 
Pl. 2: 
Type 
Ion L. 
Capriola Adans., Fam. PI. 2: 31. 
532. 1763. The genera are indi- 
cated and distinguished by Adanson 
in a much abbreviated and often un- 
satisfactory manner. The tabular 
arrangement of the genera of Phal- 
arides, his first section of the grass 
family or Gramina, includes Cap- 
Fig. 105. — Bermuda 
jrass, Capriola daetylon. Plant, 
floret, X 5. 
spikelet and two views of 
riola, with the following diagnosis, interpreting the table : Summit of leaf sheath 
hairy ; flowers in digitate spikes ; glumes laterally compressed ; lemma awnless. 
In the index there is given as a synonym under Capriola, " Gramen daetylon 
Offic." The last phrase appears in the first edition of the Species Plantarum 1 
in the synonymy under Panicum daetylon as " Gramen daetylon, radice repente. 
s. officinarum. Scheuch. gram. 104,*' thus connecting Capriola Adans. with 
Panicum daetylon. 
Cynodon Rich. ; Pers., Syn. PI. 1: 85. 1805. Only one species described, C. dae- 
tylon, based on Panicum daetylon L. 
The only species in North America is Capriola daetylon (L.) 
Kuntze (fig. 105), commonly known as Bermuda grass. This is a 
1 L, Sp. PI. 58. 1753. 
