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



the summit. Annuals or perennials, of wet soil, usually branching, 

 the inflorescence a dense, usually elongate, spikelike panicle. Type 

 species, Panicum gibbum Ell. {Sacciolepis striata). Name from 

 Greek sakkion, a small bag, and lepis, scale, alluding to the saccate 

 second glume. 



1. Sacciolepis striata (L.) Nash. (Fig. 1547.) Perennial, gla- 

 brous, often decumbent and rooting at 

 base; culms as much as 1 to 2 m tall; 

 sheaths more or less papillose-hirsute; blades 

 lanceolate, 4 to 20 cm long; panicles 6 to 

 30 cm long; spikelets about 4 mm long. 

 % {Sacciolepis gibba Nash.) — Marshes, 

 ditches, and wet places, Coastal Plain, New 

 ™ m t^S$%g£! m ° { Jerse y (Cape May) to Florida, Tennessee, 

 Texas, and Oklahoma; West Indies (fig. 1548). 

 Sacciolepis indica (L.) Chase. Annual; culms slender, spreading, 

 20 to 60 cm tall; blades 2 to 4 mm wide; panicle spikelike, 1 to 4 cm 

 long; spikelets about 2.5 mm long, glabrous. % — Introduced in a 

 Government pecan orchard, Thomasville, Ga. India. 



132. OPLJSMENUS Beauv. 



Spikelets terete or somewhat laterally compressed, subsessile, 

 solitary or in pairs, in two rows crowded or approximate on one side 

 of a narrow scabrous or hairy rachis; glumes about equal, entire, or 

 emarginate, awned from the apex or from between the lobes; sterile 

 lemma exceeding the glumes and fruit, notched or entire, mucronate 

 or short-awned, enclosing a hyaline palea; fertile lemma elliptic, acute, 

 convex or boat-shaped, the firm margins clasping the palea, not 

 inrolled. Freely branching, creeping, shade-loving annuals or 

 perennials, with erect flowering shoots, flat, thin, lanceolate or ovate 

 blades, and several one-sided, thickish, short racemes rather distant 

 on a main axis. Type species, Oplismenus africanus Beauv. Name 

 from Greek hoplismenos , armed, alluding to the awned spikelets. 



1. Oplismenus setarius (Lam.) Roem. and Schult. (Fig. 1549.) 

 Perennial; culms slender, lax, ascending or prostrate, 10 to 20 cm 

 long, sometimes as much as 30 cm; blades ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 

 thin, 1 to 3 cm long, 4 to 10 mm wide; panicle long-exserted, usually 

 not more than 5 cm long; racemes usually 3 to 5, subglobose, distant 

 or the upper approximate, the lower internodes sometimes as much 

 as 2 cm long, the rachis 2 to 3 mm long, sometimes to 6 mm; spikelets 

 about 5 (4 to 8) on each rachis; awn of first glume 4 to 8 mm long. 

 01 — Shaded places along the coast, North Carolina to Florida, 

 Arkansas, and Texas; tropical America at low altitudes (fig. 1550). 



An allied species of the American tropics, Oplismenus hirtellus (L.) 

 Beauv., basket grass, is cultivated by florists as a basket plant and 

 for edging, under the name Panicum variegatum. It has been incor- 

 rectly referred to Oplismenus burmanni (Retz.) Beauv. The common 

 form in cultivation is variegated, the blades being striped with white. 



