Spikelets of one perfect flower, and the rudiment of a second (consisting of an awn-like pedicel mostly bearing a naked bristle), sessile and remotely alternate on long filiform rays or spikes, which form a crowded naked raceme. Glumes lance-awl-shaped, keeled, almost equal, rather longer than the membranaceous flowering glume, which is cylindrical-involute, with the midrib produced from just below the 2-cleft apex into a straight and slender bristle-like awn; palet nearly as long, with the abortive rudiment at its base. Stamens 3. Stigmas pencil-form, purple.—Root perennial. Leaves short and flat, thickish, 1–3´ long. (Name composed of γυμνός, naked, and πώγων, a beard, alluding to the reduction of the abortive flower to a bare awn.)
1. G. racemòsus, Beauv. (Pl. 9, fig. 1, 2.) Culms clustered from a short rootstock (1° high), wiry, leafy; leaves oblong-lanceolate; spikes flower-bearing to the base (5–8´ long), soon divergent; awn of the abortive flower shorter than its stalk, equalling the pointed glumes, not more than half the length of the awn of the fertile flower.—Sandy pine-barrens, N. J. to Va., and southward. Aug., Sept.
2. G. brevifòlius, Trin. Filiform spikes long-peduncled, i.e. flower-bearing only above the middle; flowering glume ciliate near the base, short-awned; awn of the abortive flower obsolete or minute; glumes acute.—Sussex Co., Del., and southward.
45. SCHEDONNÁRDUS, Steud. ([Pl. 11.])
Spikelets small, acuminate, 1-flowered, appressed-sessile and scattered along one side of the slender rhachis of the distant sessile and divaricately spreading spikes. Empty glumes persistent, narrow, acuminate, more or less unequal, the longer usually a little shorter than the rather rigid acuminate flowering one. Stamens 3. Styles distinct. Grain linear.—A low slender annual, branching from the base, with short narrow leaves. (Name from σχεδόν, near, and Nardus, from its resemblance to that genus.)
1. S. Texànus, Steud. Stem (6–20´ long) naked and curved above, bearing 3–9 racemosely disposed thread-like and triangular spikes 1–3´ long; spikelets 1½´´ long. (Lepturus paniculatus, Nutt.)—Open grounds and salt-licks, Ill. to Mont., Col., and Tex. Aug.
46. BOUTELOÙA, Lagasca. Muskít-Grass. ([Pl. 9.])
Spikelets crowded and closely sessile in 2 rows on one side of a flattened rhachis, comprising one perfect flower below and one or more sterile (mostly neutral) or rudimentary flowers. Glumes convex-keeled, the lower one shorter. Perfect flower with the 3-nerved glume 3-toothed or cleft at the apex, the 2-nerved palet 2-toothed; the teeth, at least of the former, pointed or subulate-awned. Stamens 3; anthers orange-colored or red.—Rudimentary flowers mostly 1–3-awned. Spikes solitary, racemed or spiked; the rhachis somewhat extended beyond the spikelets. (Named for Claudius Boutelou, a Spanish writer upon floriculture and agriculture.)
§ 1. CHONDRÒSIUM. Spikes pectinate, of very many spikelets, oblong or linear, very dense, solitary and terminal or few in a raceme; sterile flowers 1–3 on a short pedicel, neutral, consisting of 1–3 scales and awns.
1. B. oligostàchya, Torr. Glabrous, perennial (6–12´ high); leaves very narrow; spikes 1–5, the rhachis glabrous; glumes all sparingly soft-hairy, the lobes awl-pointed; sterile flower copiously villous-tufted at the summit of the naked pedicel, its 3 awns equalling the larger glume.—N. W. Wisc. to Dak., and south to Tex. and Mex.—Glumes obscurely if at all papillose along the keel, the middle lobe of the flowering one 2-cleft at the tip. Sterile flowers often 2, the second mostly a large awnless scale, becoming hood-like and coriaceous.