MANUAL OF THE GRASSES OF THE WEST INDIES Site 
(not broad and hyaline), not inrolled; palea not enclosed above. 
Aquatic perennials with succulent sparingly branching culms, flat 
blades, and soft dense panicles. 
inflorescencerdensesspikelike 20 2025) 2 ee 1. H. AMPLEXICAULIS. 
Inflorescence long and narrow with ascending branches, not spikelike. 
2. H. DONACIFOLIA. 
1. Hymenachne amplexicaulis (Rudge) Nees, Agrost. Bras. 276. 
1829. 
Pancum amplericaule Rudge, Pl. Guian. 1: 21. pl. 27. 1805. 
British Guiana. 
Agrostis monostachya Poir., in Lam., Encycl. Sup. 1: 256. 1810. 
Puerto Rico. 
Panicum hymenachne Desv., Opusc. 82. 1831. Puerto Rico. 
Culms commonly 1 m or more tall; blades 20 to 35 cm long, 2 to 3 
cm wide, cordate-clasping; panicles about 8 mm thick and 20 to 50 
cm long; spikelets acuminate, 3 to 4 mm long (fig. 292). 
Marshes and shallow water, often forming pure colonies, Tropics of 
both hemispheres. Common on all the Greater Antilles and Trinidad. 
Specimens have been seen also from Guadeloupe, Dominica, Marti- 
nique, and St. Lucia. Grisebach”™ misapplies the name Hymenachne 
myurus to this species. 
2. Hymenachne donacifolia (Raddi) Chase, Jour. Wash. Acad. Sci. 
S917 (ee MOS . 
Panicum donacifolium Raddi, Agrost. Bras. 44. 1823. Brazil. 
Panicum auriculatum Willd., in Spreng., Syst. Veg. 1: 322. 1825. 
Tropical America. 
Hymenachne patula Fourn., Mex. Pl. 2: 37. 1886. Cuba, Lveb- 
mann 402. 
Hymenachne auriculata Chase, Biol. Soc. Wash. Proc. 21: 5. 1908. 
Similar to H. amplexicaulis, olivaceous throughout (at least when 
dry); panicles of numerous ascending, densely flowered branches, the 
lower distant; spikelets about 3 mm long. 
Marshes and shallow water, Panama to Brazil; Cuba. 
Cupa: Mendoza, Ekman 11481, 11492. Habana, Léon 808. 
Between La Mulata and Las Posas, Ekman 17368. 
TRINIDAD: St. Francique, Broadway 4978. Oropuche Lagoon, 
Britton, Hazen, and Freeman 1149. Without locality, Bot. Gard. 
Herb. 3355. 
. SCUTACHNE Hitche. and Chase, Biol. Soc. Wash. Proc. 24: 
148. 1911 
Inflorescence paniculate, the spikelets short-pediceled along the 
slender, simple or nearly simple branches; spikelets fusiform, acu- 
minate, the base attenuate, the internodes of the rachilla elongate, the 
lowermost forming a stipe, the first glume adnate to it; first glume 
membranaceous, about half the length of the spikelet, broad, the 
margins connate below; second glume and sterile lemma subequal, a 
manifest internode of the rachilla between them, leathery-indurate, 
brown or brownish, 5-nerved, the lemma enclosing a palea of similar 
texture (and in S. ‘dura a staminate flower); fruit but slightly more 
indurate than the second glume and sterile lemma, elliptic in outline, 
75 F]. Brit. W. Ind. 553. 1864. 
