MANUAL OF THE GRASSES OF THE WEST INDIES Zot 
68. Paspalum motembense Léon, in Britton, 
Bull. Torrey Bot. 
Club 53: 457. 1926. Cuba, Léon and Loustalot 9354. 
Culms about 60 cm tall, erect, with a short 
rhizome; blades mostly folded, elongate, 5 to 
8 mm wide; racemes several, ascending, the 
lower about 5 cm long, the upper gradually 
shorter, the axis about 15 cm long; spikelets 
2.5 mm long, elliptic; fruit brown (fig. 189). 
Grassy places, Cuba. Known only from 
the type collection, from Motembo, Province 
of Santa Clara. 
69. Paspalum urbanianum Ekman, sp. nov. 
Perennial with a short scaly rhizome; culms 
80 to 100 cm tall erect, appressed branches 
from the lower nodes, the lower part slightly 
spongy, clothed with overlapping old 
sheaths; leaves numerous, crowded toward 
FIGURE 190.— Paspalum 
urbanianum. Panicle, 
X 1; spikelet and floret, 
X 10 ( 
type). 
the base, the sheaths 
papillose-hirsute toward 
the summit, usually 
conspicuously so on the 
collar; ligule mem- 
branaceous, scarcely 
1 mm long; blades 
terete, the margins 
erown together above HiguEe 1805 —Easpalin 
Sexe - motembense. Panicle, X 1; 
the hispid b ase, stiff two views of spikelet, and 
but rather brittle, 30 floret, X 10 (type). 
to 60 cm long (the 
uppermost reduced) 1.5 to 2 mm thick, erect or 
ascending, sharp-pointed; racemes 3 to 5, slender, 
narrowly ascending, purplish-brown, 8 to 15 cm 
long, 3 to 5 cm distant on a slender common 
axis; rachis 0.7 to 0.8 mm wide, flexuous, some- 
times naked at base; spikelets in pairs or solitary 
on short scabrous pedicels, not crowded, some- 
times distant, often unsymmetrical, 3.5 to 3.8 
mm long, about 1.5 mm wide, elliptic, acute; 
olume and sterile lemma equal, pointed be- 
yond the fruit, glabrous or very obscurely 
pubescent, 5-nerved, the outer pair of nerves 
obscure, thin, the lemma sometimes faintly 
wrinkled; fruit 3 mm long, minutely papillose- 
striate, chestnut-brown, the apex and margin 
of the lemma paler (fig. 190). 
Type in the United States National Herba- 
rium, no. 1502227, collected in a moist place, 
about 2,000 m altitude, Loma Tina, prov. Azua, 
in the Cordillera Central, Dominican Repub- 
lic, October 9, 1929, by E. L. Ekman (no. H 
13712). 
60 Perenne; culmi 80-100 em alti erecti; folia numerosa; vaginae summo hispidae; laminae elongata; 
Suberectae eylindricae subrigidae pungentes; racemi 3-5 purpurei 8-15 em longi; rachis 0.7-0.8 mm lata 
spiculae geminae 3.5-3.8 mm longae 1.5 mm latae acutae glabrae vel obscure pubescentes; fructus 3 mm 
longus castaneus. 
