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GENUS 1. LEERSIA. Solander.

(Named from Dr. John D. Leers, a German Botanist.)

Spikelets one-flowered, compressed in one-sided racemose panicles,
jointed with the short pedicels; glumes none; paleae chartaceous, compressed
carinate, without awns, bristle-ciliate on the keels, nearly equal
in length, but the lower one broader, carinate, and inclosing the flat
grain; stamens 1 to 6, usually 2 or 3; scales membranaceous; stigmas
feathery, the hairs branching. Perennial swamp plants; culms and
sheaths retrorsely scabrous.

1. Leersia Oryzoides. Swartz.

Synonyma. - Phalaris oryzoides, Linnaeus; Asprella oryzoides, Lamarck;
white grass, cut grass, false rice, &c.

Panicle diffusely branched, often sheathed below; spikelets rather
spreading elliptic-oblong; paleae strongly bristly-ciliate, whitish: stamens
three. Perennial; flowers in August; culms 3 to 5 feet high.
About ditches, sluggish streams, and swamps. A coarse, rough,
white-topped grass, of no used as food for cattle. A native of Europe
and Asia as well as of America. It has been observed in Ohio, Michigan,
Illinois, and at Milwaukee in Wisconsin. In some of the Southern
States, where this grass is known as "rice's cousin," on account of its
relation to the cultivated rice (oryza sativa), it is used as hay, but at the
North it is deemed of no value. Dr. Darlington* considers it a nuisance,
which the farmer should take measures to expel by draining the
land on which it grows. At the West it does not occur in sufficient quantities
to render any such precaution necessary.

2. Leersia Virginica. Wildenow.

Syn. - Asprella Virginica, Roem & Schult.

Panicle simple, slender, not sheathed at the base; spikelets closely
appressed and somewhat imbricated on the slender branches, oblong;
stamens two; paleae sparingly ciliate greenish. Perennial; flowers in
August; culms 2 to 4 feet high. A slender-panicled, delicate-looking

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* Agricultural Botany, page 106.

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