62 



GRAMINE.E. 



erect or drooping, 1 to 3 ft. high; lowest internodes not corm-like; 

 leaf-blades 1 line wide; panicle slender, linear, 6 to 12 in. long; 

 branches in distant whorls, several at a node, erect or sometimes in 

 anthesis spreading, very unequal, the longest mostly equaling or 

 exceeding the internodes, spikelet-bearing from about the middle 

 upwards; spikelets to 2 lines long, 1-flowered with 1 or 2 empty 

 bractlets above it, rarely 2-flowered; bracts nearly ovate, shorter than 

 the nearest bractlet, obtuse, lower 3, upper 5-nerved; margins broadly 

 scarious; bractlet acute; rudiment short-pedicellate. 



Commonly met with on shaded hillsides in the Coast Ranges: Mt. 

 Tamalpais; San Francisco; Loma Prieta; Oakland; Berkeley and 

 northward and southward. Apr. 



2. M. Torreyana Scribn. Torrey's Melic-grass. Stems 

 slender, erect or drooping, 1 to 3 ft. high; lowest internodes not 

 corm-like; blades about 1£ lines wide; panicle slender, linear, 3 to 7 

 in. long; branches few at a node, very unequal, slender, erect, 

 flexuous, often long and naked below, bearing few spikelets near 

 the ends; spikelets 2 to 3 lines long; bracts acute, the upper exceed- 

 ing or equaling the bractlets; bractlets hairy; rudiment long- 

 pedicellate. 



Apparently peculiar to California in the Coast Eanges and Sierra 

 Nevada foothills: Red Ridge, opposite mouth of Conn Valley, Napa 

 River Basin, Jepson; Ukiah. Apr.-May. 



3. M. Californica Scribn. California 31 klk -grass. Stems 

 erect, H to 4 ft. high; lower internodes corm-like; ligule brownish 

 and pubescent or scabrid on the outside below; panicle 6 to 9 in. long, 

 strict; branches few at a node, usually equaling or exceeding the 

 internode, spikelet-bearing to the base; spikelets 4 to o lines long, of 

 2 to 3 perfect flowers; bracts thin, obtuse; bractlet 3 to 3£ lines long, 

 apparently many-nerved below at least when dry, margin above 

 scarious, broad, obtuse, emarginate. — (M. bulbosa Thurb. in Bot. 

 Cal., not of Geyer.) 



Dry hillsides, often with a western exposure; foothills of the Sierra 

 Nevada and Coast Ranges from Santa Inez northward: Oakland 

 Hills; Berkeley. Apr.-June. 



31. PLEUROPOGON R.Br. Side-beard. 

 Slender annuals. Leaf-blades flat, together with the sheaths thin 

 and characterized by cross-veins which unite the longitudinal ones 

 and with them form narrow, rectangular spaces. Inflorescence a 

 simple, elongated, secund raceme; spikelets distant, shortly pedicellate, 

 long, narrow, 8 to 14-flowered, compressed. Bracts not reaching to the 

 apex of the nearest bractlet, unequal, membranaceous, awnless; lower 

 1-nerved, upper larger, 3-nerved, the lateral nerves faint. Rachilla 

 jointed between the flowers and breaking up at maturity, undulate, 

 smooth, its internodes less than £ the length of the bractlets. Bractlet 

 at first herbaceous becoming chartaceo-coriaceous, scarious and promi- 

 nently 5 to 7-nerved, narrowed below to a rounded, smooth callus, 

 apex 2-toothed or truncate, the mid-nerve prolonged into a mucro or 



