8. A. laguroìdes, DC. Culms slender, tall, the elongated peduncle bearing numerous sessile spikes in a spike-like panicle 2–4´ long; spikes slender, 1´ long or more, very silky; spikelets glabrous, the sterile a narrow convolute empty glume.—Central Kan. to Tex. and Mex.
[+][+][+] Spikes digitate-clustered, very silky; sterile spikelet larger than the fertile one.
9. A. Hàllii, Hackel. Culm stout, 2–3° high; lateral peduncles few, scarcely exserted from the sheaths; spikes 2–5, 1–3´ long, dense; spikelets 3–4´´ long.—Central Kan. to Dak., and westward.
15. CHRYSOPÒGON, Trin. ([Pl. 14.])
Spikelets in pairs on the ramifications of an open panicle (those at the ends of the branches in threes), the lateral ones pedicellate, sterile or often reduced merely to their pedicels; only the sessile middle or terminal one fertile, its glumes coriaceous or indurated, sometimes awnless; otherwise nearly as in Andropogon. Stamens 3. (Name composed of χρυσός, gold, and πώγων, beard.)
1. C. nùtans, Benth. (Indian Grass. Wood-Grass.) Root perennial; culm simple (3–5° high), terete; leaves linear-lanceolate, glaucous; sheaths smooth; panicle narrowly oblong, crowded or loose (6–12´ long); the perfect spikelets at length drooping (yellowish or russet-brown and shining), clothed especially toward the base with fawn-colored hairs, lanceolate, shorter than the twisted awn; sterile spikelets small and imperfect, deciduous, or reduced to a mere plumose-hairy pedicel. (Andropogon avenaceus, Michx. Sorghum nutans, Gray.)—Dry soil; common, especially southward.
16. PHÁLARIS, L. Canary-Grass. ([Pl. 13.])
Spikelets crowded in a clustered or spiked panicle, 1-flowered. Glumes 5, the third and fourth reduced to mere rudiments (a scale or a pedicel), one on each side, at the base of the flowering glume and palet, which are flattish, awnless and shining, shorter than the equal boat-shaped and keeled persistent empty glumes, finally coriaceous or cartilaginous, and closely enclosing the flattened free and smooth grain. Stamens 3.—Leaves broad, mostly flat. (The ancient name, from φαλός, shining, alluding to the shining seed.)
§ 1. PHALARIS proper. Panicle very dense, spike-like; glumes wing-keeled.
P. Canariénsis, L. (Canary-Grass.) Annual, 1–2° high; spike oval; empty glumes white with green veins, the rudimentary ones small lanceolate scales.—Waste places and roadsides; rare. (Adv. from Eu.)