THE GRASSES OF BRITISH HONDURAS
 AND THE PETEN, GUATEMALA

 INTRODUCTION
 The first important collection of plants from British Honduras was made
 by M. E. Peck in 1905-07, in the Belize and Toledo Districts. Until very
 recently there have been no other collectors in the region. In 1928 and 1929,
 however, C. L. Lundell made extensive collections at Honey Camp, Orange
 Walk District; and H. P. Smart in the Belize, Stann Creek and Toledo
 Districts, in British Honduras. On recent Maya expeditions under
 the auspices of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and the University
 of Michigan, H. H. Bartlett in 1931 and C. L. Lundell in 1932 and 1933
 obtained many specimens in the Belize and El Cayo Districts of British
 Honduras, and the Pet6n, Guatemala. For the past several years W. A.
 Schipp has collected in southern British Honduras, especially in the Stann
 Creek District. Additional collections were made by Sampson, Aguilar,
 Gentle, and others.
 Only two papers have been published dealing with the grasses of this
 area. The first is "On the Gramines collected by Professor Morton E. Peck
 in British Honduras, 1905-1907" by F. Tracy Hubbard.1 The second is
 "The Grasses of Central America" by A. S. Hitchcock.2
 Numerous additions to the grass flora of our region have been found in
 the collections mentioned above since the latter work was published. Only
 four of these are new species: Axonopus ciliatifolius,s A. rhizomatosus,3
 Panicum bartlettii,4 and Oryza alta herein described.
 Among the grasses, as in some other groups, there are species, such as
 Oryza alta and Pennisetum nervosum, which occur in British Honduras and,
 so far as known, in no other part of Central America. However, they are
 again found in northern South America and Brazil. It is probable that they
 also grow in the intervening countries but have not yet been discovered.
 The pine ridges of British Honduras closely resemble the pine forests of
the Southeastern Coastal Plain of the United States. The same pine, Pinus
caribea, is found in both localities. It is not surprising therefore to find
that there are also grasses which are common to both regions. Several
species of the Dichanthelium group of Panicum, so characteristic of the
pine woods of the Southeastern States, also occur on the pine ridges of
British Honduras.
 'Proc. Amer. Acad. 49: 495. 1913.
 'Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 24: 662. 1930.
 'Jason R. Swallen, New Grasses from the United States, Mexico, and Central America,
Jour. Wash. Acad. Sci. 23: 458. 1933.
* 'Jason R. Swallen, The Grasses of the Yucatan Peninsula, Carnegie Inst. Wash. Pub.
No. 436, 334, 1934.