MANUAL OF THE GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES 481 



1. Eleusine indica (L.) Gaertn. Goosegrass. (Fig. 1027.) 

 Branching at base, ascending to prostrate, very smooth; culms com- 

 pressed, usually less than 50 cm long, but sometimes as much as 1 m; 

 blades flat or folded, 3 to 8 mm wide; spikes mostly 2 to 6, rarely 

 more, or but 1 in depauperate plants, flat, 4 to 15 cm long, o — 

 Waste places, fields, and open ground, Massachusetts to South 

 Dakota and Kansas, south to Florida and Texas; occasional in Oregon 

 and California (fig. 1028); introduced; a common weed in the warmer 

 regions of both hemispheres. 



Eleusine tristachya Lam. Spikes 1 to 3, rarely more, 1 to 2.5 cm 

 long, 8 to 10 mm thick; resembling E. indica, but the spikes short 

 and thick, o — On ballast, Camden, X.J. and 

 Mobile, Ala.; Portland, Oreg. and elsewhere; 

 tropical Africa; introduced in tropical South 

 America. 



Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn. African 

 millet. More robust than E. indica; spikes 

 thicker, heavier, sometimes incurved at the tip, 



i • i » i • j /. ^J Figure 1028.— Distribution of 



brownish at maturity. A cultivated lorm oi Eleusine indica. 



E. indica; the seed used for food among primi- 

 tive peoples in Africa and southern Asia. O — Occasionally grown at 

 experiment stations. Called also ragi, coracan millet, and finger millet. 



94. DACTYLOCTEXIUM Willd. 



Spikelets 3- to 5-flo\vered, compressed, sessile and closely imbricate, 

 in two 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 

 unequal, broad, 1-nerved, the first persistent upon the rachis, the 

 second mucronate or short-awned below the tip, deciduous; lemmas 

 firm, broad, keeled, acuminate or short-awned, 3-nerved, the lateral 

 nerves indistinct, the upper floret reduced ; palea about as long as the 

 lemma; seed sub^lobose, ridged or wrinkled, enclosed in a thin, early- 

 disappearing pericarp. Annuals or perennials with flat blades and 

 two to several short thick spikes, digitate and widely spreading at the 

 summit of the culms. Type species, Dactyloctenium aegyptium. 

 Name from Greek daktulos, finger, and ktenion, a little comb, alluding 

 to the pectinate arrangement of the spikelets. 



1. Dactyloctenium aegyptium (L.) Richt. (Fig. 1029.) Culms 

 compressed, spreading with ascending ends, rooting at the nodes, 

 branching, commonly forming radiate mats, usually 20 to 40 cm long, 

 sometimes as much as 1 in; blades flat, ciliate; spikes 1 to 5 cm 

 long, o —Open ground, waste places, and fields, Coastal Plain, 

 North Carolina to Florida and Arizona, also occasional at more 

 northern points (Maine to New Jersey; Illinois); tropical America 

 (fig. 1030); introduced from tropical regions of the Old World. 



95. CYNODON Rich. 



(Capriola Adans.) 



Spikelets 1-flowered, awnless, sessile in two rows along one side of 

 a slender continuous rachis and appressed to it. the rachilla dis- 

 articulating above the glumes and prolonged behind the palea as a 



