GRASS FAMILY. 



37 



hyaline; upper lanceolate, awn-pointed, about 4^ lines Long; empty 

 bractlets curved, emarginate or shortly bifid, 1£ lines long; awn short; 

 stigmas long-exserted. 



Introduced at Mendocino City and Crescent City, and reported by 

 Dr. Behr as occurring in Marin Co. May-July. Its fragrance i- 

 attributed to the presence of cumarin. 



7. HIEROCHLOE Gmel. Vanilla-grass. 



Sweet-scented perennials', with flat, often broad, acuminate leaf- 

 blades. Panicle loose, pyramidal. Spikelets somewhat laterally 

 compressed, often shining and scabrid, with 1 terminal, perfect 

 flower, subtended by (in ours) 2 staminate ones; bracts about equal, 

 obscurely 1 to 3-nerved, keeled, acute, glabrous. Staminate flowers 

 sessile; bractlet and palea alike, villous, scarcely shorter than the 

 bracts, obtuse emarginate or bifid, keeled, the main nerve often 

 extending into a short awn; bractlet 5-nerved; palea 2-nerved; 

 stamens 3. Perfect flower shortly pedicellate; bractlet becoming 

 indurated above, awnless, 5-nerved; palea narrow, 3-nerved or nerve- 

 less beyond the keel; stamens often 2 only. Scales 2, lanceolate. 

 Ovary smooth. (Greek hieros, sacred, chloe, a grass, with reference 

 to the use of one species in north Europe for strewing church floors 

 on special occasions, on account of its fragrance when crushed.) 



1. H. macrophylla Thurb. Large-leaved Vanilla-grass. 

 Rootstocks in bunches (sometimes very large), stoloniferous; stems 

 1 to 2 ft. high, erect, leafy; panicle narrow, 3 to 6 in. long, lax and 

 open; branches 1 or 2 at a joint, bearing few, large spikelets with 

 spreading bracts; spikelets about 2 lines long, 2 to 3 lines wide when 

 open, brownish, brightly shining; anthers yellow, about 1 line long. — 

 (Savastana macrophylla Beal.) 



In light, loose soil on moist, shaded banks of coniferous forests in 

 the redwood belt, from Marin Co. northward: Paper Mill Creek, 

 Marin Co., Bolander in 1864; Inverness and Bear Valley near Olema: 

 Mill Valley; Russian River from Duncan's Mills to Guerneville: 

 Austin Creek and Turner Canon. Mar.-May. Said to owe its 

 fragrance to the presence of cumarin; it has been known to retain 

 some of its odor for fully thirty years after gathering. 



Tribe 4. Agrostideae. Bent-grass Tribe. 



Inflorescence paniculate or rarely racemose, often cylindrical dense 

 and spikelike. Spikelets all fertile, strictly 1-flowered. Flower 

 always perfect, either terminal, or sometimes the rachilla prolonged 

 beyond its insertion, as a bristle. Rachilla jointed above the bracts 

 (except in Alopecurus and Polypogon) so that these persist after the 

 flower falls. Bracts usually equaling or exceeding the bractlet. 

 Palea 2-nerved or nerveless, in some species of Agrostis and 

 Alopecurus minute or obsolete. 



Bractlet indurated at maturity (at least firmer in texture than the bracts) and 

 very closely enveloping the fruit; panicle (in ours) lax. 

 Bractlet narrow; awn persistent, twisted, stout S. Stipa. 



