GRASS FAMILY. 



69 



purplish; sheaths smooth; blades very narrow and slender, almost 

 setaceous, smooth, about \ line wide, 4 to 10 in. long; ligule very- 

 short; panicle 6 to 7 in. long, narrow, sparse or somewhat dense; 

 rachis and branchlets scabrid, the latter erect, in pairs below, the 

 longest about 3 in. long and bearing 3 to 5 spikelets on the upper £; 

 pedicels about 3 lines long; spkielets 6 to 7 lines long, 6 to 8-flowered; 

 bracts awnless, the lower 2, upper 2\ lines long; bractlets 2\ to 3£ 

 lines long, glabrous or minutely scabrous above, with a slender awn 

 1 to 1£ lines long; anthers 1£ to 2 lines long. — (F. ovina var. rubra 

 Gray.) 



Common in dry, exposed places: Vaca Mts., Jepson; Los Guilucos 

 Valley and Hood's Peak, Bioletti; Point Isabel; Olema; Point Lobos, 

 San Francisco. Apr. -June. 



2. F. Californica Vasey. California Fescue, Rootstoek peren- 

 nial, forming large tufts; stems clothed with the dead sheaths below, 

 3 to 4 ft. high, stout; foliage glaucous; sheaths often lavender-colored 

 at the base when young, scabrous; ligule and auricles villous without 

 and within; panicle 6 to 9 in. long, drooping; rachis scabrid; branches 

 in pairs below, spikelet-bearing above the middle; spikelets about £ 

 in. long, 4 to 7-flowered; lower bract 2 to 3£, upper 2h to 4 lines long; 

 bractlets cuspidate or with a short awn usually less than 1 line long, 

 occasionally nearly 2 lines long; anthers purplish, 2^ to 3 lines long. — 

 (F. scabrel'la Thurb. in Bot. Cal., not of Hook.) 



Forming large and ornamental tufts on the shady banks of canons 

 in the Coast Ranges: Claremont Canon; Redwood Peak; Olema; 

 Point Reyes. Apr.-June. 



3. F. denticulata Beal, is described as a stout and rather handsome 

 grass, with loose and drooping panicle and conspicuous awns 4 to 6 

 lines long. The specimens on which the species was founded (as F. 

 ambigua Vasey, not of Le Gall) were collected in Oregon, Hoiccll; 

 "California," Kellogg and Harford, no. 1116, and Santa Cruz, 

 Anderson. 



4. F. microstachys ( Munro) Nutt. Western Fescue. Annual; 

 stems erect, 6 to 12, or in shady places, 24 in. high; panicle 1 to 4 in. 

 long; branches secund, usually divergent, remote, the longest 1} to 2 

 in. long; spikelets remote, 2£ to 5 lines long, 1 to 5-flowered; bracts 

 glabrous or scabrous, awnless, sub-equal, lower \\ to 2\ lines long; 

 bractlet li to 2 lines long, awn slender, 2\ to 4 lines long. 



Napa Valley; Conn Valley Ridge; near Highland Springs; Berke- 

 ley; Mt. Tamalpais; Cazadero. Apr.-July. Var. pauciflora 

 Scribn. Inflorescence often reduced to a spike; spikelets 1 to 

 2-flowered. — Berkeley Hills, Davy. Var. ciliata A. Gray. " Bract- 

 lets, and sometimes the bracts also, densely hispid. — Not uncommon 

 in the foothills of the San Joaquin Valley and in Southern Cali- 

 fornia; apparently seldom met with in the Coast Range valleys: Napa 

 City, Jepson. 



5. F. Myuros L. Squirrel-tail Fescue. The form of this 

 variable annual species which is recognized in Europe and the eastern 



