BULLETIN
4
fact that the
309, U.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.
S.
Mexican name
is "Raiz de zacaton"; that Zacaton is the name most Mexico. The French name for the root-brush mate-
for the roots
roots of grass, in literal translation.
is,
commonly
applied to the species in
1
"chiendent,"
rial is
while "Mexican whisk" other to
an-
still
is
name
applied
first
known Epi -
it.
The
collection
of
cam pes macroura was made by Humboldt and Bonpland in the mountains of Toluca, in the State of
Mexico,
altitude
of
at
an
10,500
sometime prior In the working up of this feet,
to 1815.
collection the speci-
mens were assigned to the genus Crypsis Ait.
under the spe-
cific
names
ma-
croura, phleoides, and stricta. About 1829,
when Kunth
published that portion of his Revision '
'
des Graminees" 2 containing the Agrohe evidently
stideae,
— Zacaton
(Epicampes macroura), whole plant, one-sixth natural Three spikelets, 4 times natural size; b, empty glumes, 4 times natural size; c flowering glume, dorsal view, 4 times natural size;
Fig.
1.
size,
a,
,
d, palet,
dorsal view, 4 times natural size.
had changed his mind as to the assignment of these specimens to Crypsis
and reassigned them genus Cinna. Many years later, about 1886, Eugene Fournier, 3 in working up the collections of Mexican plants deposited in the herbarium of the Museum of Paris, established a new genus, to Linnseus's
1
Zacaton as a common name is applied also to Muhlcnbcrgia distichophylla (Presl) Kunth and Sporobolus Munro. Kunth, K. S. Revision des Graminees. 3 v. Paris, 1829. Fournier, Eugene. Mexicanas Plantas pars. 2, p. 90. Parisiis, 1886.
wrightii 2 3
.
.
.
