GRASS FAMILY 
205 
Diego Co. to the Sacramento Valley, the commoner form; nat. from Eur. 
2. P. minor Retz. Annual; culms erect. 3 to 9 dm. high; glumes with 
a green stripe on each side of the keel at the base of the wing, the wing 
scabrous on the margin and more or less toothed; fertile lemma ovate, 
acute, villous, about 3 mm. long, the sterile lemma solitary, about Vs as 
long.—Waste places, rather abundant: Sacramento Valley to S. Cal.; 
nat. from Mediterranean region. 
28. ORYZA L. 
Ours a tall annual. Spikelets 1-flowered. Flowers perfect, in panicles. 
Glumes minute. Lemma and palea about equal, keeled, scabrous, the 
lemma more or less awned. Stamens 6. (From the Arabic name.) 
1. O. sativa L. Rice. Cult, on low lands in the Sacramento Valley. 
It is an important cereal, furnishing food to more people of the earth 
than any other one grain. Native of Old World. 
29. PANICUM L. Panic Grass 
Annuals or perennials. Spikelets arranged in open or compact pan¬ 
icles, rarely racemes. Glumes usually very unequal, the first often 
minute, the second typically equaling the sterile lemma, the latter of the 
same texture and simulating a third glume, bearing in its axil a mem¬ 
branous or hyaline palea and sometimes a staminate flower, the palea 
rarely wanting. Fertile lemma chartaceous-indurate, typically obtuse, 
the nerves obsolete, the margins inrolled over an inclosed palea of the 
same texture. (Ancient Latin name for common millet.) 
1. P. pacificum Hitchc. & Chase. Tufted perennial; vernal phase light 
green, more or less papillose-pilose throughout, 3 to 6 dm. high; ligule 
ciliate, about 4 mm. long; spikelets 1.8 to 2 mm. long; autumnal phase 
prostrate-spreading, repeatedly branching from the upper and middle 
nodes.—Sandy shores and slopes, and moist crevices in rocks: San 
Bernardino Mts. and Sierra Nevada, 500 to 4000 ft.; along the coast 
from Pt. Reyes to Del Norte Co. 
30. ECHINOCHLOA Beauv. 
Coarse, often succulent, our species annual with compressed sheaths, 
linear flat blades, and rather compact panicles of short densely flowered 
racemes along a main axis. Spikelets plano-convex, often stiffly hispid, 
solitary or in irregular clusters on one side of the panicle branches. 
First glume about half the length of the spikelet, pointed; second glume 
and sterile lemma equal, pointed, mucronate, or the glume short-awned 
and the lemma long-awned, sometimes conspicuously so, inclosing a mem¬ 
branous palea and sometimes a staminate flower. Fertile lemma plano¬ 
convex, smooth and shining, acuminate-pointed, the margins inrolled 
below, flat above, the apex of the palea not inclosed. (Greek echinos, 
hedgehog, and chloa, grass.) 
1. E. crusgalli (L.) Beauv. Water Grass. Culms stout, 6 to 12 dm. 
high; leaves glabrous; panicle dense, 10 to 25 cm. long, consisting of 
several erect spreading or even drooping racemes ; spikelets green or 
purple, long-awned or nearly awnless, about 3 mm. long, exclusive of 
awns, densely and irregularly crowded in 3 or 4 rows.—Fields and cult, 
soil, especially along irrigating ditches; serious pest in the Sacramento 
