Page:Zacaton as a paper-making material (IA zacatonaspaperma309bran).pdf/8

 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

.

.

.