Steinchisma cupreum (Hitchc. & Chase) W. V. Br.

Panicum cupreum Hitchc. & Chase, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 15:
120. 1910.
Panicum hians purpurascens Scribn. Proc. Acad. Phila. 1891: 296. 1891. Not P. purpurascens H, B. K. 1815.
Plants perennial, in small tufts; culms simple, erect, 40-60 cm. high, slender, wiry, glabrous; leaves somewhat clustered at the base, their sheaths keeled, glabrous, the lower overlapping. 237
the upper shorter than the internodes; ligule fimbriate, scarcely 0.5 mm. long; blades 5-15 cm. long, 2-4 mm. wide, at the base scarcely as wide as the sheaths, erect or ascending, folded and more or less twisted, glabrous or with a few long hairs on the upper surface at the base; panicles very long-exserted, 3-11 cm. long, dark-purple, composed of a few distant, slender, appressed or ascending branches, naked about half their length, bearing short, crowded branchlets with densely clustered spikelets along the upper half or toward the ends; spikelets 3 mm. long, about 1.2 mm. wide, and at maturity nearly twice as thick, rather strongly nerved; first glume one third the length of the spikelet or less, obtuse, concave along the midnerve ; second glume and sterile lemma equal, exceeded by the enlarged sterile palea, the lemma strongly concave along the midnerve below; fruit 2.4 mm. long, 0.8 mm. wide, the margins of the lemm? more inrolled than in P. hians, the apex tipped with a minute bit of hyaline membrane.
Type locality: Flor de Maria, State of Mexico.
Distribution: Southern Mexico.