Tlie region of count ry immediately adjoiningthenortlieni boundary of Mexico, incduding the western part of Texas, and the greater part of New Mexico, Arizona, and southern California, is one of remarkable heat and aridity. It is mainly a region of elevated plains, called mesas, intersected by mountain ranges which occasionally run into high peaks, and is drained by comparatively few streams, which, on account of the limited rain-fall, cease to flow during a good part of the year, or convey

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... the waters obtained from distant portions of the country. Most of the region lies north of the thirty-second parallel of latitude, and in the If PANICUM LACHNANTHUM, Torr. No. 5. SETARIA CAUDATA R. & S. J'laiit ainmal. Rootstock none. Roots slender. Culms 5i to 2^feet high, branching from the base, scabrous or iieai-ly glabrous; nodes provided with a ring of silky ai)i)ressed li.iirs; brandies usually short and sterile. Leaves of the stem 4 or 5; sheaths usually distant, glabi-ous, ciliate on the margins, villous at the apex; blade 1 to :J lines broad, usually 5 to '.) inches long, Hat, glabrous beneath, scabrous above; ligule about 1 line long, cut nearly to the base into silky hairs. Radical leaves like those of the stem. Inflorescence a contracted si>ike-like panicle 3 to 4 lines broad (exclusive of the bi'istles), 3 to G inches long, on a moderately long exserted peduncle; Vj ranches of the i)anicle shoit (1 to 3 lines), spikelets sessile or nearly so, some of the pedicels sterile and prolonged into slender scabrous bristles 6 lines long or less. Spikelets ovate, acute, semiterete, I to 1^lines long. Olumes 4; 2 lower empty, membranaceous, glabrous; first broadly ovate, acute, 3-nerved, one-half the length of spikelet; second broadly oval, obtu.se or mucronate, 5-nerved, nearly as long as the spikelet, fittingclosely to the flowering glume; third like the second but slightly longer, acute, and subtending a rudimentary lanceolate hyaline palet; fourth (flowering), when in position, narrowly ovate, acute, coriaceous, rounded and minutely rugose-roughened on the back, obscurely 5-nerved. Flower hermaphrodite. Palet lanceolate when in position, coriaceous (the infolded margins membranaceous), fiat on the back when mature, obscurely 2-nerved. Stamens 3. Stigmas 2, oblong. Plate V; «, spikelet with its accompanying bristle. The spikelet is opened to show its parts. The flowering glume is represented too short, and should be acute, while the back of the palet is not represented as flat. This grass has much the habit of German millet, and with proper cultivation would probably produce an abundant cro^j.