Since the publication of the first edition of Grasses: Panicum
to Danthonia in 1973, twenty additional taxa of grasses have
been discovered in Illinois that are properly placed in this
volume. In addition, numerous nomenclatural changes have
occurred for plants already known from the state, and many
distributional records have been added. This second edition
updates the status of grasses in Illinois. Paul W. Nelson has
provided illustrations for all of the additions. Because the
nature of grass structures is generally so different from that
of other flowering plants, a special terminology is applied to
them. In his introduction, Robert H. Mohlenbrock cites these
terms, with descriptions that make the identification of unknown
specimens possible. Mohlenbrock’s division of the grass family
into subfamilies and tribes is a major departure from the
sequence usually found in most floristic works in North America.
Synonyms that have been applied to species in the northeastern
United States are given under each spec