GENERA OF GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 
227 
species of Paspalum in which both glumes are wanting, the third, to which the 
generic description less aptly applies, is a species of Reimarochloa. Reimaria 
Candida is taken as the type. 
Cymatochloa Schlecht, Bot. Zeit. 12 : 817, 821. 1854. Two names, " C. flui- 
tans (Ceresia flmtans Ell.)" and " C. repens (Paspalum repens Berg.)" are 
given. Both names apply to the same species, Paspalum repens Berg. 
Dimorphostachys Fourn., Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci. (Paris) 80: 441. 1875. 
The type is Panicum monostachyum H. B. K., the first of four species men- 
tioned. 
Paspalum is closely allied to Panicum, differing chiefly in the 
strictly racemose inflorescence and the plano-convex spikelets in 
which the first glume is wanting. In a few species (section Dimor- 
phostachys, in Paspalum distichum and in P. hifidum (Bertol.) 
Nash) the first glume is present on at least a part of the spikelets. 
In P. pulchellum Kunth of tropical America and a few other species 
both glumes are wanting. 
In spite of the large number of species in this genus, very few 
are of economic importance. Most of the species make a sparse 
growth in moist pine barrens and old fields and are not grazed to 
any extent. A few species inhabiting meadows and savannas fur- 
nish a limited amount of forage. Among these may be mentioned 
P. laeve Michx. (fig. 137) and P. ciliatif olium Michx., and the allies 
of these species. Paspalum laeve, with 2 or 3 racemes and spikelets 
2,5 mm. long, is common from Maryland to Florida and Texas. 
Paspalum- ciliatif olium and its allies, besides the one to few slender 
racemes on the main culm, have several naked branches from the 
upper sheaths, each branch usually bearing a single raceme. 
Paspalum distichum L., with creeping stolons and racemes in 
pairs at the summit of the culms, is widely distributed along muddy 
coasts and ditch banks from Virginia to Florida and thence across 
the continent to California and Washington. Where abundant it 
furnishes some forage. 
Paspalum dilatatum Poir. has been tried as a forage grass in the 
Southern States, where it has been cultivated under the name of 
water grass. It has little to recommend it here, but in the Hawaiian 
Islands it gives much promise as a pasture grass. In tropical Amer- 
ica species of Paspalum form an important element in the grazing 
land of the savannas, P. notatum Fliigge being one of the most 
abundant. 
118. Panicum L. 
Spikelets more or less compressed dorsiventrally, arranged in open 
or compact panicles, rarely racemes; glumes 2, herbaceous, nerved, 
usually very unequal, the first often minute, the second typically 
equaling the sterile lemma, the latter of the same texture and simu- 
lating a third glume, bearing in its axil a membranaceous or hyaline 
palea and sometimes a staminate flower, the palea rarely wanting; 
