417 
GENUS 1. LEERSIA. Solander. 
(Named from Dr. John D. Leers, a German Botanist.) 
Spikelets one-flowered, compressed in one-sided racemose panicles, 
jointed with the short pedicels ; glumes none ; paleac chartaceous, com¬ 
pressed carinate, without awns, bristle-ciliate on the keels, nearly equal 
in leno-th, but the lower one broader, carinate, and inclosing the flat 
O 7 o 
grain ; stamens 1 to 6, usually 2 or 3 ; scales membranaceous; stigmas 
feathery, the hairs branching. Perennial swamp plants; culms and 
sheaths retrorselv scabrous. 
1. Leersia Oryzoides. Swartz. 
Synonyma. —Phalaris oryzoides, Linnaeus ; Asprella oryzoides, La¬ 
marck ; white grass, cut grass, false rice, &c. 
Panicle diffusely branched, often sheathed below; spikelets rather 
spreading elliptic-oblong; paleae strongly bristly-ciliate, whitish : sta¬ 
mens three. Perennial; flowers in August; culms 3 to 5 feet high. 
About ditches, sluggish streams, and swamps. A coarse, rough, 
white-topped grass, of no use as food for cattle. A native of Europe 
and Asia as well as of America. It has been observed in Ohio, Michi¬ 
gan, Illinois, and at Milwaukee in Wisconsin. In some of the Southern 
States, where this grass is known as “rice’s cousin,” on account of its 
relation to the cultivated rice (oryza sativa ), it is used as hay, but at the 
North it is deemed of no value. Dr. Darlington* considers it a nui¬ 
sance, which the farmer should take mjasures to expel by draining the 
land on which it grows. At the West it does not occur in sufficient quan¬ 
tities to render any such precaution necessary. 
2. Leersia Yirginica. Wildenow. 
Syn. —Asprella Yirginica, Roem & Schult. 
Panicle simple, slender, not sheathed at the base ; spikelets closely 
appressed and somewhat imbricated on the slender branches, oblong; 
stamens two; paleae sparingly ciliate greenish. Perennial; flowers in 
August; culms 2 to 4 feet high. A slender-panicled, delicate-looking 
* Agricultural Botany, page 106. 
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