484 MISC. PUBLICATION 200, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 



spicuous ring of white hairs; blades flat, those of the innovations 

 often conspicuously distichous; spikes usually 4 or 5, 2.5 to 5 cm 

 long; spikelets imbricate, 2 mm long, the lemma boat-shaped, acute. 

 91 (Capriola dactylon Kuntze.) — Open ground, grassland, fields, and 

 waste places, common, Maryland to Oklahoma, south to Florida and 

 Texas, west to California; also occasional north of this region (New 

 Hampshire to Michigan, Oregon) (fig. 1032); 

 warm regions of both hemispheres, introduced 

 in America. Bermuda grass is the most 

 important pasture grass of the Southern 

 States, and is also widely utilized there as a 

 lawngrass. On alluvial ground it may grow 

 sufficiently rank to be cut for hay. It prop- 

 FlGUR cSL rfSo«. tion ° f agates readily by its rhizomes and stolons, and 

 on this account may become a troublesome 

 weed in cultivated fields. This grass is known also as wire-grass 

 (especially the weedy form in fields). A more robust form, found 

 along the seacoast of Florida, has been called C. marilimus, though 

 the type of that (from Peru) is characteristic C. dactylon. There are 

 large areas of Bermuda grass around the Roosevelt Dam, Ariz., 

 where it survives submergence and furnishes grazing at low water. 



96. WILLKOMMIA Hack. 



Spikelets 1 -flowered, dorsally compressed, sessile in two rows on 

 one side of a slender rachis and appressed to it, the rachilla somewhat 

 lengthened below and above the second glume, disarticulating just 

 above it, not prolonged above the floret; glumes thin, unequal, the 

 first narrow, nerveless, the second 1 -nerved; lemma awnless, 3-nerved, 

 the lateral nerves near the margin, the back of the lemma sparingly 

 pubescent between the nerves, the margins densely covered with 

 silky hairs; nerves of the palea densely silky hairy. Annuals or 

 perennials, with several short spikes racemose on a slender axis; our 

 species a low tufted perennial. Type species, Willkommia sarmentosa 

 Hack. Named for H. M. Willkomm. 



1. Willkommia texana Hitchc. (Fig. 1033.) Culms erect to 

 spreading, 20 to 40 cm tall; blades flat or more or less involute, short; 

 spikes few to several, 2 to 5 cm long, somewhat overlapping or the 

 lower distant, appressed, the axis 4 to 15 cm long; spikelets about 4 

 mm long, narrow, acute; first glume about two- thirds as long as the 

 second, obtuse; second glume subacute; lemma about as long as the 

 second glume. % — Spots of "hard pan", central and southern 

 Texas. A stoloniferous form has been found in Argentina. 



97. SCHEDONNARDUS Steud. 



Spikelets 1 -flowered, sessile and somewhat distant in two rows on 

 one side of a slender, continuous 3 -angled rachis, appressed to its 

 slightly concave sides, the rachilla disarticulating above the glumes, 

 not prolonged; glumes narrow, stiff, somewhat unequal, acuminate, 

 1-nerved; lemmas narrow, acuminate, a little longer than the glumes, 

 3-nerved. Low, tufted perennial, with stiff, slender, divergent spikes 

 arranged rather remotely along a common axis. Type species, 

 Schedonnardus texanus Steud. (S. paniculatus) . Name from Greek 

 schedon, near, and Nardus, a genus of grasses (Steudel places Schedon- 

 nardus next to Nardus in his classification). 



