40 



GRAMINE.E. 



naturalized in the United States and British America: Glen Ellen, 

 Sonoma Co.; flats along the Kussian River near Guerneville. June- 

 Aug. 



2. P. alpinum L. Mountain Timothy. Closely related to P. 

 pratense hut stems rarely more than a foot high, usually stouter and 

 more leafy, slightly decumbent at base; internodes not corm-like; 

 uppermost sheaths inflated; ligule about 1 line long, truncate; leaf- 

 blades short, acute, 1^ to 5 lines wide; panicle ovoid or oblong, £ to 

 1£ in. long, feathery, usually darker in color; spikelets about 2£ lines 

 long including the awns; margins of bracts less abruptly truncate; 

 anthers about f line long. 



Sierra Nevada and the higher Coast Range Mountains; also on dry, 

 sandy bluffs along the coast from Crescent City to San Francisco: 

 dry hills near Fort Point, Bolander, 1862; Bodega Point, Eastwood; 

 Point Reyes. Apr.-Aug. 



10. ALOPECURUS L. Fox-tail. 

 Aspect much that of Phleum. Upper sheaths usually inflated; 

 leaf blades flat. Inflorescence a dense, cylindrical or ovoid, terminal 

 thyrse or false spike, which is soft to the touch and jointed on the 

 apex of the enlarged peduncle. Spikelets 1-flowered, crowded, 3 lines 

 or less long, much compressed laterally. Bracts somewhat united 

 at the base, conduplicate, compressed-keeled, deciduous with the 

 flower; keel ciliate-fringed or slightly winged. Rachilla not jointed 

 above the bracts. Flower decidedly proterogynous. Bractlet and 

 palea hyaline, equaling or barely shorter than the bracts; bractlet broad, 

 obtuse, 1 to 3 or 5-nerved, with a short, very slender, bent awn on 

 the back, at, or below, the middle; margins connate at the base, 

 enclosing the flower; palea usually obsolete, when present narrow, 

 acute, keeled, partly included by the bractlet. Scales obsolete. 

 Stamens 3. Ovary smooth; stigmas long, shortly hairy with simple 

 hairs. (Greek alopex, a fox, oura, a tail, from the fancied resem- 

 blance of the thyrse to a fox's tail. Closely resembling and nearly 

 allied to Phleum. The name "Fox-tail " has frequently been applied, 

 in California, to the Barley-grasses, species of the genus Hordeum.) 



Spikelets iy 2 to 3 lines long; thyrse 2y 2 to Zy x in. long I. A. pratensis. 



Spikelets \% to 2 lines long; thyrse 1 to 2 in. long, 2>£ to iy 2 lines wide 



2. A. Calif omicus. 



Spikelets \to\y 2 lines long; thyrse % to 1 in. long, 1% to 2y z lines wide .... 



3. A. geniculalus. 



1. A. pratensis L. Meadow Fox-tail. Rootstock perennial, 

 stoloniferous; stems erect or the lowest node geniculate, smooth; 

 sheaths smooth, upper much inflated; ligule J to H lines long, entire, 

 truncate, brown, scabrid; blades 1.]- to 3 lines wide; panicle slender, 

 dense, cylindrical, obtuse, 21 to 3 1 in. long, soft, pale green or 

 purplish; branches very short, with 3 to 6 spikelets; spikelets 2 1 to 3 

 lines long, 1 line broad, narrowly oval, much compressed, acute; 

 bracts acute, villously ciliate on the keel; margins connate for about 

 | to i their length; bractlet awned from near the base; margins connate 



