MANUAL OF THE GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES 



545 



branaceous; palea narrow, enclosing 

 the oval, dorsally compressed cary- 

 opsis. Low-spreading, much-branched 

 annual, the short, flat, pungent leaves 

 in fascicles. Type species, Munroa 

 squarrosa. Named for William Munro. 

 1. Munroa squarrosa (Nutt.) Torr. 

 False buffalo grass. (Fig. 791.) 

 Forming mats as much as 50 cm. in 

 diameter, the internodes of the pros- 

 trate culms scabrous, as much as 10 

 cm. long, the fascicles at the nodes 

 consisting of several short leafy 

 branches, with 1 or 2 longer branches 

 with slender internodes; blades stiff, 

 mostly less than 3 cm. long, 1 to 3 

 mm. wide; fascicles of spikelets about 

 7 mm. long; lemmas with a tuft of 

 hairs on the margin about the middle. 

 O — Open ground, plains, and hills, 

 at medium altitudes, common in old 

 fields and recently disturbed soil, 

 Alberta and North Dakota to Mon- 

 tana, south to Texas, Arizona, and 

 Nevada. Occasional plants are found 

 with a white floe cose covering, the 

 remains of egg cases of a species of 

 woolly aphid. The variety floccuosa 

 Vasey was described from such a 

 specimen. 



115. BTJCHLOE Engelm. 



(Bulbilis Raf.) 

 Plants dioecious or monoecious. 

 Staminate spikelets 2-flowered, sessile 

 and closely imbricate, in 2 rows on 

 one side of a slender rachis, forming 

 a short spike; glumes somewhat un- 

 equal, rather broad, 1-nerved, acut- 

 ish; lemmas longer than the glumes, 

 3-nerved, rather obtuse, whitish; 

 palea as long as its lemma. Pistillate 

 spikelets mostly 4 or 5 in a short 

 spike or head, this falling entire, 

 usually 2 heads to the inflorescence, 

 the common peduncle short and in- 

 cluded in the somewhat inflated 

 sheaths of the upper leaves, the 

 thickened indurate rachis and broad 

 outer (second) glumes forming a rigid 

 white obliquely globular structure 

 crowned by the green-toothed sum- 

 mits of the glumes; first glume 

 (inside) narrow, thin, mucronate, well 



developed to obsolete in a single 

 head; second glume firm, thick and 

 rigid, rounded on the back, ob- 

 scurely nerved, expanded in the 

 middle, with inflexed margins, en- 

 veloping the floret, abruptly contract- 

 ed above, the summit with 3 green 

 rigid acuminate lobes; lemma firm- 

 membranaceous, 3-nerved, dorsally 

 compressed, broad below, narrowed 

 into a 3-lobed green summit, the 

 middle lobe much the larger; palea 

 broad, obtuse, about as long as the 

 body of the lemma, enveloping the 

 caryopsis. A low stoloniferous peren- 

 nial with short curly blades, the 

 staminate flowers in 2 or 3 short 

 spikes on slender, erect culms, the 

 pistillate in sessile heads partly 

 hidden among the leaves. Type 

 species, Buchloe dactyloides. Name 

 contracted from Greek boubalos, 

 buffalo, and chloe, grass, a Greek 

 rendering of the common name, 

 "buffalo grass." 



1. Buchloe dactyloides (Nutt.) 

 Engelm. Buffalo grass. (Fig. 792.) 

 Gray green, forming a dense sod, the 

 curly blades forming a covering 5 to 

 10 cm. thick; blades rather sparsely 

 pilose, 1 to 2 mm. wide; staminate 

 culms slender, 5 to 20 cm. tall, the 

 spikes 5 to 15 mm. long; pistillate 

 heads 3 to 4 mm. thick. . % — 

 Dr}^ plains, western Minnesota to 

 central Montana, south to north- 

 western Iowa, Texas, western Louis- 

 iana, Arizona, and northern Mexico. 

 Buffalo grass forms, when unmixed 

 with other species, a close soft gray- 

 ish-green turf. It is dominant over 

 large areas on the uplands of the 

 Great Plains, colloquially known as 

 the "short-grass country." and is one 

 of the most important grazing grasses 

 of this region. The foliage cures on 

 the ground and furnishes nutritious 

 feed during the winter. The sod 

 houses of the early settlers were 

 made mostly from the sod of this 

 grass. In 1941 it was planted at 

 Boyce Thompson Institute, Yonkers, 

 N. Y., and is proving to be an ex- 

 cellent cover for exposed dry banks. 



