PANICUM PARVISPICULUM n. sp.
Culins 3-5 dm. tall, caespitose, erect, or later decumbent and creeping at the base, glabrous, or toward the base appressed-hir sute, nodes blackish brown, usually more or less pubescent. Sheaths shorter than the internodes, the lower ones usually ap pressed-hirsute, the upper puberulent or glabrous and ciliate on the margins ; ligule a copious ring of hairs 3-4 mm. long ; leaves erect or ascending, rigid, thickish, linear-lanceolate, rough on the margins, glabrous above, pubescent beneath, usually with short hairs, acuminate at the apex, rounded at the base, the primary leaves 3-9 cm. long, 4-8 mm. wide, the later leaves 5-6 cm. long or less ; primary panicle broadly ovate, 8—ro cm. long, its branches spreading or somewhat ascending, much divided from the base, the larger 4-6 cm. long and frequently pilose at the base; spike lets numerous, 1.5 mm. long, on divergent pedicels I-3 times as long as the spikelets, the first three scales membranous, green, densely pubescent with short spreading hairs, the first scale one quarter to one-third as long as the spikelet, orbicular, acute, I nerved, the second and third scales about equal in length, broadly oval and obtuse when spread out, 7-nerved, the third scale enclos ing a hyaline palet less than one-half its length, the fourth scale' chartaceous, elliptic, acutish, white, enclosing a palet of eqal length and similar texture.
Type collected by Dr. John K. Small at Darien Junction, Mc Intosh Co., Ga., June 25-27, 1895. It is related to P. lencothrix Nash, in habit, but the longer and more robust culms, the sheaths which are longer in proportion to the internodes and much less hirsute or glabrous, and the larger panicle and spikelets make manifest its specific validity.
I would also refer to this species the grass collected by Mr. A. H. Curtiss, near Jacksonville, Fla., on May 4, 1893, No. 4033, and distributed as P. mthium Lam. The panicle and spikelets are somewhat smaller, but in other respects it agrees.