Identifier: textbookofgrasse01hitc (find matches)
Title: A text-book of grasses with especial reference to the economic species of the United States
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Hitchcock, A. S. (Albert Spear), 1865-1935
Subjects: Grasses
Publisher: New York, The Macmillan Company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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of Andro-pogonese but having membranaceous awnless instead ofhyahne usually awned lemmas, are single or in groups andfall entire from the continuous rachis. In the genera foundin the United States the spikelets are in groups. Key to Genera of Nazie^ A. Second glume beset with hooked spines Nazia. AA. Second glume without hooked spines. B. Groups of spikelets spreading or drooping along one side of the main axis ^gopogon. BB. Groups of spikelets erect, not secund. c. Plants stoloniferous Hilaria. cc. Plants not stoloniferous Pleuraphis. The most important genus is Hilaria, with the speciesH. cenchroides H.B.K. (Fig. 18), curly mesquite. Thisgrass is common on the uplands of Texas and Mexicowhere it is an important range-grass. It resembles buf-falo-grass in being short, in producing stolons and informing a sod, and by stockmen is often confused withthat grass. In curly mesquite, the spikelets are in clus-ters of 3, the groups borne on the upright axis forming 174 A TEXT-BOOK OF GRASSES
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Fig. 18. Hilaria cenchroides. Plant reduced; group of spikelets,a staminate spikelet, a pistillate spikelet, X5. (U. S. Dept. Agr.,Div. Agrost., Bull. 20.) NAZIEM—MELINIDEM 175 a short spike. The allied genus Pleuraphis furnishes afew important forage grasses in the Southwest. Pleura-phis Jamesi Torr., is called galleta in New Mexico, aname which is applied in California to P. rigida Thurb. Other grasses of interest belonging to this tribe areNazia, one species of which, N. aliena (Spreng.) Scribn.extends from the tropics into Arizona, and Osterdamia(Zoysia), one species of which 0. matrella (L.) Kuntze(Zoysia pungens Willd.), the Japanese or Korean lawn-grass is occasionally cultivated in California, and alongthe seacoast of the south Atlantic states. The firstmentioned genus is peculiar in that the fascicles of 3 to 5spikelets form a bur, the second glume of each spikeletbeing provided with hooked spines. In Osterdamia thespikelets are single instead of in groups. Tribe IV. MELINI

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