GRASS FAMILY. .",.".". 



F. elatior, TALLEU MEADOW FESCI;E, A rather rigid grass of meadows 

 nnd pastures, nat. from Europe: l-4 high, with LJTCCII flat leaves, a narrow 

 panicle with short branches appressed before ami after llowcrinjr, 5 - 10-tlowcrcd 

 green spikelets, the lower palet blunt, or acute, or rarely with a short awn. 1J. 



Br6mUS, BKOMK GRASS. Spikelets large, at length drooping in an O])en 

 panicle, containing 5-10 or more flowers, the lower palet with a short brittle 

 point or an awn from, the blunt rounded tip or notch, the upper palet >oon adher- 

 ing to the grain. Coarse grasses : two or three wild species are common, and the 

 following are weeds of cultivation, from Europe, or the last cultivated tor (odder. 



B. secalinus, COMMON CHESS or CHEAT. Too well known in wheat- 

 fields ; nearly smooth ; panicle open and spreading, even in fruit ; spikelets 

 turgid; flowers laid broadly over each other in the two ranks; lower palet 

 convex on the back, concave within, awnless or short-awned. @ 



B. racemdsus. UPRIGHT CHESS : like the other, but with narrower 

 erect panicle contracted in fruit, lower palet sicnder-awned, and sheaths .-ome- 

 times hairy. 



B. mollis, SOFT CHESS : like the preceding, but soft-downy, with denser 

 conical-ovate spikelets, and the long-awned lower palet acute. @ 



B. unioloides, or B. SCIIR.\DERI (CERATOCIII.OA UNIOLOIDES) : lately 

 much prized for fodder, may be valuable S., is rather stout and broad-leaved, 

 with drooping large spikelets much flattened laterally, so that the lower palets 

 are almost conduplicate and keeled on the back. ]/ 



Briza maxima, LARGE QUAKING GRASS or RATTLESNAKE-GRASS, is 



sometimes cult, in gardens for ornani /nt, from En. : a low trrass, with the 

 hanging many-flowered ovate-heart-shaped spikelets somewhat like those of 

 Bromus, but pointless, very tumid, purplish, becoming dry and papery, rattling 

 in the wind, whence the common name. 



-i- -4- - Grain and fileadow-Grnsses, ivith a mostly twisted or !>ent awn on the 

 bar/i of the I nicer pnlet : flowers 2 or 3, or ff.io in t/ie spilcelet, and mostly 

 shorter than the (/lames. 



+-< Flowers perfect or the uppermost rudimentary. 



Aveaa sativa, CULTIVATED OAT, from Old World : soft and smooth, 

 with a loose panicle of large drooping spikelets, the palets investing the grain, 

 one flower with a long twisted awn on the back, the other awnless. 



A. nilda, SKINLESS OAT, rarely cult, from Old World : has narrower 

 roughish leaves, 3 or 4 flowers in the spikeiet, and grain loose in the palets. 



*+ +* One floicer perfect and one. staminate only. 



ArrenathSrum avenaceum, OAT-GRASS, or GRASS-OF-THE-ANDES. 



Rather coar>e but soft grass, introduced from Europe into meadows and fields 

 and rather valuable : 2 -4 high, with flat linear leaves, IOIIL;- and loose panicle, 

 thin and very unequal glumes, including a staminate flower, the lower palet, of 

 which bears a long bent awn below its middle, above this a perfect flower with 

 its lower palet bristle-pointed from near the tip, and above that a rudiment of a 

 third flower. 2/ 



H61CUS lanatus, VELVET-GRASS, or MBADOW-SOPT-GRASS. Introduced 

 from En. into meadows, not very common, li-2 hiirh. well distinguished by 

 its paleness and velvety softness', being soft downy all over ; panicle crowded ; 

 the flowers only 2 in the spikeiet, small, rather distant, the lower one perfect 

 and awnless, tlie upper staminate and with a curved or hooked awn below the 

 tip of its lower palet. y, 



2. Spikelets either strict/i/ spiked or in a panicle so contracffl and dm*r as to 

 imitate a spike. (I fere would he gout/lit one apides o/"Calamagrostis and 

 one of Phalaris.yo/- which see above, p. 354, 35").) 



* Aim borne low down on the back of one or tiro p<il,ts. 



Anthoxanthum Odoratum, SWEET-SCENTED VI-:IIVAL-GKV<*. n.it 

 from Eu. : the plant which gives delicious fragrance to drying hay (the other, 



