60 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
to those collected by ourselves from a study of specimens com 
tained in the herbarium of the Milwaukee Public Museum. 
On account of the draining of marshes, clearing of wood¬ 
lands for farming purposes, and the building up of villages and 
towns, many of the grasses hitherto found are disappearing, and 
in their place the railroads and other sources are bringing in 
new species. This probably accounts for our own failure to 
find a number of the species previously recorded which have 
no doubt now disappeared entirely. 
KEY TO THE SUBFAMILIES AND TRIBES. 
1. Spikelets one, rarely two flowered; when two flowered the terminal 
flower perfect, the lower staminate or neuter; rhachilla articu¬ 
lated below the glumes; spikelets more or less dorsally com¬ 
pressed. ....Subfamily PANICOIDEAE. 2. 
Spikelets one to many flowered, the rudimentary floret if present 
usually uppermost; rhachilla usually articulated above the 
glumes which are persistent on the pedicel or rhachis after the 
fall of the florets; when 2-many flowered a distinct internode 
of the rhachilla separates the florets and is articulated below 
them; spikelets more or less laterally compressed.......... 
........Subfamily POACOIDEAE. 3. 
2. Spikelets in pairs or threes on the usually articulate rhachis of a 
spike-like raceme; one sessile and fertile, the other pedicelled 
and perfect, staminate, neuter or rudimentary.. 
... Tribe ANDROPOGONEAE. 
Spikelets all perfect, in racemes or panicles; glumes membranous,., 
unequal; first usually small, sometimes obsolete; fertile lemma 
and palea indurated, firmly clasped together enclosing the free 
grain, almost always awnless...... .Tribe PANICEAE. 
3. Spikelets upon pedicels, in panicles, spike-like panicles, or racemes,. 
not in rows..... 4. 
Spikelets arranged in two rows..... 7. 
4. Spikelets with but one perfect flower which is terminal except in 
Ammophila and certain species of Calamagrostis ....... .5. 
Spikelets with two or more perfect flowers. (The lower one stami¬ 
nate in Arrhenatherum )........ 6. 
5. Glumes one or none....Tribe ORYZEAE. 
Glumes four, (Only two in Savastana, but the pair above bear only 
staminate flowers) palea one-nerved..... Tribe PHALARIDEAE. 
Glumes two, palea two-nerved.........Tribe AGROSTIDEAE. 
6. Lemmas generally shorter than the glumes, usually with a bent 
awn on the back..... Tribe AVENEAE. 
Lemmas generally longer than the glumes, unawned or with a 
straight awn from the apex..........Tribe FESTUCEAE. 
7. Spikelets forming a one-sided spike or raceme... 
.......Tribe CHLORIDEAE. 
Spikelets in opposite rows forming an equilateral spike............. 
..Tribe HORDEAE. 
