Schizachyrium gracile (Spreng.) Nash

Schizachyrium gracile (Spreng.) Nash, in Small, Fl. SE
U. S. 60. 1903.
Andropogon gracilis Spreng. Syst. 1 : 284. 1825.

Andropogon juncifolius Desv.; Hamilt. Prodr. 9. 1825
Sorgum gracile Kutitze, Rev. Gen. 791. 1891.
A tufted perennial, with extravaginal innovations, smooth and glabrous with the exceptions mentioned below. Stems slender, rigid, 2-6 dm. tall, branched, the branches single or in pairs; leaf -sheaths glabrous, shorter than the internodes, strongly striate; blades 2 dm. long or less, very slender, terete, 0.8 mm. in diameter or less, strongly striate; spike-like racemes long-exserted, 3-5 cm. long, silvery-white, the rachis somewhat flexuous, the internodes a little shorter than the sessile spikelets, slender, the back and margins clothed with long hairs, those at the summit more than twice as long as the internodes, the pedicels as long as or a little shorter than the sessile spikelets; sessile spikelet 5-6 mm. long, the first scale chartaceous, faintly 2-nerved in addition to the keels> entire, smooth on the back, the keels his109
pidulous, the second scale equaling the first, acute, hispidulous on the keel, the fourth scale deeply 2-cleft for one quarter to one half its length, the awn 13-20 mm. long, the much-exserted column tightly spiral, the subtda loosely so; pedicellate spikelet consisting of a single scale 1-2.5 mm. long, short-awned.
Type locality : Hispaniola.
Distribution : Florida and the Bahamas, and from Jamaica and Cuba to Guadeloupe.