MANUAL OF THE GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES 



169 



with creeping bases, flat soft blades, and open panicles. Type species, 

 Catabrosa aquatica. Name from Greek katabrosis, an eating up or 

 devouring, referring to the toothed or eroded glumes. 



1. Catabrosa aquatica (L.) 

 Beauv. Brookgrass. (Fig. 

 339.) Glabrous throughout; 

 culms 10 to 40 cm long; blades 

 mostly less than 10 cm long, 2 

 to 8 mm wide; panicle erect, 10 

 to 20 cm long, oblong or pyrami- 

 dal, yellow to brown, the 

 branches spreading in some- 

 what distant whorls; spikelets 

 short-pediceled, about 3 mm 

 long; glumes about 1.5 and 2 

 mm long; lemmas 2.5 to 3 mm 

 long. % — Mountain mead- 

 ows, around springs and along 

 streams, Newfoundland and 

 Labrador to Alberta, south 

 through North Dakota and 

 eastern Oregon to northern 

 Arizona (fig. 340); Eurasia. 



Cutandia memphitica 



(Spreng.) Richt. Low annual; 

 blades flat; panicle few- 



Figure 339.— Catabrosa aquatica. Plant, X M\ spikelet and floret, X 5. (Williams and Fernald, Que.) 



flowered; spikelets on short pedicels, finally divergent on the zigzag 

 branches, o — San Bernardino Mountains, Calif. ; introduced from 

 the Mediterranean region. 



