Spikelets several-flowered, narrow, erect and scattered along the slender rhachis of the long spicate spikes; flowers all perfect or the uppermost staminate. Empty glumes membranaceous, carinate, acute, unequal; flowering glume slightly longer, 1–3-nerved, 2-toothed, and mucronate or shortly awned between the teeth. Stamens 3. Styles distinct. Grain free.—Coarse grasses, with narrow flat leaves, and several or many slender spikes sessile upon an elongated peduncle. (Name from διπλόος, double, and ἄχνη, in the sense of chaff, with reference to the 2-lobed glume.)
1. D. fasciculàris, Beauv. Smooth; leaves longer than the geniculate-decumbent and branching culms, the upper sheathing the base of the panicle-like spike, which is composed of many strict spikes (3–5´ long); spikelets slightly pedicelled, 7–11-flowered, much longer than the lanceolate glumes; flowers hairy-margined toward the base, the glume with 2 small lateral teeth and a short awn in the cleft of the apex. (Leptochloa fascicularis, Gray.)— Brackish meadows, from R. I. southward along the coast, and from Ill. southward on the Mississippi. Aug.–Sept.
52. PHRAGMÌTES, Trin. Reed. ([Pl. 11.])
Spikelets 3–7-flowered; the flowers rather distant, silky-villous at base, and with a conspicuous silky-bearded rhachis, all perfect and 3-androus, except the lowest, which is either neutral or with 1–3 stamens, and naked. Glumes membranaceous, shorter than the flowers, lanceolate, keeled, sharp-pointed, very unequal; flowering glume and palet membranaceous, slender, the glume narrowly awl-shaped, thrice the length of the palet. Squamulæ 2, large. Styles long. Grain free.—Tall and stout perennials, with long running root-stocks, numerous broad leaves, and a large terminal panicle. (Φραγμίτες, growing in hedges, which this aquatic grass does not.)
1. P. commùnis, Trin. Panicle loose, nodding; spikelets 3–5-flowered; flowers equalling the beard.—Edges of ponds. Sept.—Looks like Broom-Corn at a distance, 5–12° high; leaves 2´ wide. (Eu.)
53. ARÚNDO, L.
Flowers all perfect; flowering glume bifid, short-awned between the teeth. Otherwise as Phragmites. (The Latin name of the species.)
A. Dònax, L. Very tall (10–18°); spikelets 3–4-flowered.—Closely resembling Phragmites communis. Cultivated for ornament, and naturalized in Bedford Co., Va. (A. H. Curtiss.) (Nat. from Eu.)
54. MÚNROA, Torr. ([Pl. 16.])
Spikelets usually 3-flowered, few (2–4) and nearly sessile in the axils of floral leaves; flowers perfect, or the uppermost abortive. Empty glumes lanceolate, acute, hyaline and 1-nerved; flowering glumes larger, 3-nerved, rather rigid, the mid-nerve stout, excurrent, the lateral ones scarcely so.—Low or prostrate many-stemmed annuals, fasciculately branched, with crowded short flat rigid or pungent leaves, the short sheaths strongly striate. (Named for the English agrostologist, Maj.-Gen. William Munro.)